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The six characters of Licktoad Jubenia represent fairy tale cliches: The evil queen, the innocent princess, the prince, the noble stable boy, the wicked wizard and the creaking voice of the narrator whispering in the wind. They each have their own agenda, motives, tasks to fulfill, destinies to play out. The locations of the story are set by the music; great rolling landscapes of bass frequencies, interrupted by the sharper plaintive sounds of a dying world. The characters' voices have been pitch modulated and distorted with harmonies in such a way that each represent a different strange musical instrument within this soundscape. The music provides the rolling hills and dark heaths, while the voices fly through like a migration of spirits. The play has been written with a recognisable chronology and narrative, but each characters' lines will be spoken at random, depending upon the users' interaction. It is a million to one chance that the audience could trigger the infrared beams in such a way that the play will perform itself in its original sequence an infinite number of monkeys, if you will. The telling of the story is chaotic, encouraging the audience / listener / user / performer to respond emotionally and immediately, rather than intellectually, and each performance of the play is unique. Storytelling like this reduces the audient's capacity for intellectual processing, i.e. the instinct to make things logical, understandable, containable. The play itself,when subjected to these rigours of cut up and layer-pasting becomes intensified, its themes less rhetorical. Characters speak out of order, they appear in scenes that have nothing to do with them, they echo speeches inappropriately, ultimately illustrating the minds of men: childlike, nonsensical, impulsive, struggling to survive. Two sound examples (in Real Audio format) Demo excerpt (1:17, 155 KB): lj.chaos.ra |
Licktoad Jubenia is a gothic fairy tale. The attraction
of fairy tales is their seeming innocence, but their real power lies in
their violence. The princess loses her innocence (for which read virginity),
kills her mother....and they all lived happily ever after. Fairy tales always
deal with sex, violence and death. Yet they also deal with magic, hope,
and the triumph of good over evil.