Violence, clowning, and judo games: what can kittens teach us about playing well?

Photo: Carla Keen

If you have spoken to me in the last two months, you’ll know I leave a polite five minutes before mentioning that we just got two kittens. Aside from the chaotic joy they bring to our household (Gizmo is gently nosing my hand as I type), they have also become flurry observation subjects for one of my favourite things to think about - play.

Playing Well

In his book 'The Well-played Game', games designer Bernie De Koven uses the analogy of ping pong, asking 'how do we make a game fun for everyone?' If you are far better than your friend, the game ends quickly if you play to the best of your ability, and they won't enjoy the experience. However, if you modify the game a little, you can probably get a rally going, and both enjoy playing (because, for example, you find another game to play in you head at the same time).

To 'play well' means to play to the best of our ability (that bit is important too - both players must still be invested in the game), but not at the cost of the fun for everyone. But it also has another meaning - to play because it makes us healthy.

Me and Nuala Ryan playing 'The Conversation' as part of Kitty Winter's Clowndance lab (still from Kitty's video). Nuala had just 'broken' a rule of the game we were playing by pretending to grab my breasts. I acknowledge the transgression and how funny it is by connecting with the audience: 'It's OK, you and me are in on this'.

Clown and Bouffon

A clown plays games to entertain an audience, so this means we are introducing a sort of third player. Here, it is less useful for the clown/s to play well because what is most important is that the audience finds them funny. The game is still the means by which they entertain, but now they might fail if it makes the audience laugh, or they might play too well, or abandon the game altogether if it is funny to do so.

If they are playing with another clown, they are still attentive to the performer being well (no-one wants to see someone actually injured), but both know that playing the game well between each other comes secondary to comedy.

In a recent workshop with Eric Davis, I was reminded that for the bouffon, their pleasure is not in pleasing the audience, but in pleasing themselves. This doesn't mean that they don't check in with the audience, but instead, the audience experience the bouffon's absolute and extreme pleasure in playing for themselves. In other words, it goes from 'watch us play this game, you'll love this' to 'oh, is there a game? I hadn't noticed because we were having such fun...'

Photo: copyright Jenni Jackson (not sure of photographer)

Girl Gang

I recently did a workshop as part of the development of Jenni Jackson's show 'WrestleLadsWrestle', where a gang of girls play a set of 'combat games' on stage devised from her experience as a movement director and judo champion. We played games and exercises in partners that are gentle competitions, play fighting, trying to slap each other’s hands or topple each other using contact-impro style movement.

The show is devised such that the games are still live in the sense that both participants are playing for real, but they are still just games. And in each game, the players play well, for both the audience, and each other (it's no fun watching an endless tie or a quick win). They also play well in the sense that the show is expressing something about how women and people of colour feel, and how it feels to 'take possession of' violence in some way for yourself.

Kittens

When I watch the kittens play fight, I notice how they play well with each other. One of their favourite games is to grapple heads and bunny kick each other. It looks rough from the outside, but I notice that every so often they’ll stop and check in with other other. Then they’ll go back to bunny kicking the shit out of each other. They’ll bite each other’s neck, and then stop. And then do it again.

The point is they know they are playing. When one doesn't want to play any more, they walk away or they yowl. They remind me that when we are playing together on stage two things are important: 1) we know we are playing and there is always a a sparkle of joy, a signal to the audience that this is play and no-on is doing this for real (even if you are playing Hamlet), and 2) we play well, i.e. we make it fun for the other person - in other words, we keep checking in and it becomes a dance, a duet. If it’s a real fight, with real stakes, there is no spark of joy, and you’ll see ears flat, pupils dilated and claws out - and that’s just the humans.