Raindogs

The following texts are from 'Raindogs' a performance work for the city of Cardiff conceived, written and staged by Mike Brookes, Mike Pearson and Ed Thomas with music by John Hardy (with Stewart Lucas) and presented at Chapter Arts Centre in November 2002.

In performance ten actors - representing a group of damaged men, similarly suited, 'haunted and haunting' - were present only on video. They were filmed with CCTV cameras in the street; travelling across the city; in close-up with their eyes closed and speaking directly to camera for precise periods of time. These various sequences, totalling seventy-five minutes, were projected in parallel with other views of the city - a forty-five minute night-time tracking shot from a car for instance. Only Ed Thomas and Mike Pearson appeared 'live', informally reading texts over, in reference to, on behalf of the figures on video, who increasingly then began to speak for themselves, using the words previously heard in the third person. The assemblage of video, text and music orchestrated by Mike Brookes brought order in its rhythms and repetitions to material dramatic, documentary and ambient. It conspired in its layerings and juxtapositions to create an oblique view of our city: a city at that time bidding to become European City of Culture 2008, the city that snubbed Zaha Hadid's design for a new opera house, a city hurriedly disguising or demolishing its past.

Ed Thomas and Mike Pearson wrote texts of varying kinds for all the actors. Some were composed prior to videoing though according to precise instructions - of one minute duration for instance. Others - such as those below, from late in the performance - were written in direct response to the accumulated video footage.

1. (Mike on seeing Islwyn Morgan sitting on Hayes Island)

He hired the Big Issue seller to sit with him, liked the mongrel on a string, thought it added a touch of gritty social realism to his latest project, the film of his life story. He has decided that if he sits on Hayes Island long enough, everyone he has ever known - even the dead - will pass-by, will greet him. No longer necessary to go home, he will stay there. And they will come to him, make a fuss, offer a biscuit to go with his tea. He thinks. Occasionally he will stand and stretch his legs, then circle the chair three times before sitting. And settle himself gradually...Of course no one will come near. For his lips draw back too far and show too many teeth for this to be a smile. And his stories have already become a whine, a howl, barked at the moon. And no one will claim him. 

2. (Ed on seeing James Tyson on a bus on James Street)

'Jesus', she said to him at a bus-stop on Riverside, 'you look like Jesus'. He says nothing. 'In Jesus of Nazareth, Robert Powell, are you him?' 'I'm not Robert Powell' he says. 'Pity' she says. He gives nothing away. His emotions he keeps caged, chained, held on a short leash. He tries not to remember, struggles to forget. If he was Jesus why does he travel the city on the city circular, round and round, night and day, in moon and sun, wind and rain? Because for him the future is in buses. Eventually he will get his own bus. And when the time is right, and the city quiet, he'll break the chain. Leave the circle. He will.

3. (Mike on seeing Boyd Clack standing on Church Street)

Those people who approached him in the street mistook him for a television star, a comedian.

But he enjoyed it, pressing the flesh, making others smile, making their day. He has decided that he will become a street-greeter, welcoming visitors to the city, a city that only he knows. Here on this spot for instance he will tell them, Captain Scott paused on his way to the civic dinner, feeling an icy blast from far south suddenly scour his heart. He knows a thousand such places, unmarked, invisible to those whose feet grind away the streets each day. And these he will reveal: he will become a revelator. But home? No familiar smells draw him back to Roath or Ely or Grange. He knows only the miasma of odours hovering over Hayes Island.   So he will endlessly chase his tail there, round and round.

4. (Ed on seeing John Rowley on a boat in the Marina)

Only he would have thought of it. There would be no other way. He will make his getaway by water taxi. Overcoming as he does so his fear of water, the roll and the yaw and the tales of the captain. They will be waiting for him. Both of them. He'll be embraced at the dock like a returning hero. They will forgive him everything. They will forget that he was ever missing

That he ever strayed. That he walked out one morning and never came back. They would walk, the three of them, arm in arm, never once turning to look back at the place he'd come from. Strange, unknown, unseen. Their eyes would be fixed on the future to the place they once had and would have again, that he would have again. Home.

5. (Mike on seeing Richard Harrington standing in Queen Street)

He often gets stuck in traffic, shivering, whimpering, afraid to move. So he stands very still, hears the hum, feeling the swish of ghostly cars and lorries and trolley-buses...in both directions. But only he spots the danger, seems to realise that as he stands here, he is in the middle of the old A48, here in the middle of Queen Street. He could make a run for it but somehow he feels safe, though trembling in both legs and with the urge to piss. Sometimes he just does that anyway. Crossing the city takes him a long time: so many hazards to which others seem oblivious. So he decides to mark out safe havens and to guide the unsuspecting. Come close to him and you will be safe. Of course no one will. But he will be vigilant and faithful and true. And he will wear dark glasses so that others don't see his rolling eyes, the whites exposed at the peril he sees all around.

6. (Ed on seeing Paul Jeff on a train in Butetown)

He has a photographic memory. At night he runs the pictures through his mind. Twenty four frames a second. He controls time. The journey from the Bay to Queen Street by train is exactly three minutes. In that time four thousand three hundred and twenty images will be up there in his head waiting for night to come. He labels them one by one. He dreams up captions for them. Like Gary Larson in black and white. Soon he will exhibit them. Modestly. In the front room of a terraced house in Splott. It will be a place where strays from far and wide come to recognise themselves in black and white. Looking for a home.

7. (Mike on seeing Richard Lynch standing on Wood Street)

From a distance he seems to stand stock still, though up close his nostrils flare slightly as he sniffs the air. And from time to time he quivers, shocks of excitement passing through him, as he spots - as he senses - a moment of this or that, about to go off, about to go pear-shaped. Call it his sixth sense. But if he ever tries to explain what's coming, what's about to happen - for so many people, from so many perspectives - he moves into fast-forward and his voice...becomes a yap. So he decides to remain silent, to become a pointer, hoping that others will see what he sees if only they follow his eye-line. And this will be his task - 24/7.

8. (Ed on seeing Richard Morgan at Cardiff international airport)

Somehow he made it to the airport. He has no luggage, no passport, just the clothes on his back. He's been there three days. If he stays there any longer they will impound him.

He will spend six months in quarantine with an unwanted parrot who speaks in advertising slogans. 'Are you ready for a Ruddle's?' 'You know when you've been Tango'd.' 'The future's bright, the future's Orange.' After six months the parrot will be collected and he will not. He will stare through the wire at returning holiday makers and visiting Europeans, waiting for love. He is tired of being beaten. He dreams of a future on a shag-pile mat. Next to a cat and a mouse having come home to a real fire. To British Gas.

9. (Mike on seeing Russell Gomer standing on The Hayes)

He likes the brush of others. He feigns nonchalance but their slightest touch makes him shiver.

He never looks them in the eye or bounds up to them seeking attention or rubs himself against strangers in bars. And he knows that others will never rush up to him, pat him on the back, ruffle his hair. But there are places, particular places, strategic points, where pedestrians come close. He thinks they are drawn to him, magnetically - feels the hairs on his arm rise at the swish of a nylon anorak. And these he will seek out. And he will make a circuit, a marked-out patch, a lamppost here, a street corner there, to follow through the day, through the seasons.

10. (Ed on seeing Terry Dauncey in a taxi on Tudor Road)

Do they know he's dined with the best? At the best locations? The Angel, The Continental, Le Monde, The Royal and The Dragon. He sees them tumbling out of Burger King and MacDonald's and Miss Millies and Perfect Pizza. It makes him angry. They ignore him. He wants to roll down the window and stick out his head, feel the wind in his hair and shout 'Do you know me? Do you know who I am? Do you hear me howl? Do you hear me revolt?'

Through the rear window he plans his last supper. The cutlery will be silver. The cotton stiff and white. The waiters will be smart. The aperitif chilled. He will order lamb chops. A whole rack, and gnaw at the bones. In this way they will remember him. And he is one of ten.


© Mike Pearson and Ed Thomas