We sat down for a quick chat with Lee Minora about Baby Everything. Ticket link here: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/baby-everything
How much more aware of the world around us do you think people are now than historically?
Well we have phones and they grant us constant access to massive amounts of information and up
to the minute news from all over the world. So in the sense that we have more information about
the world at large, we, the modern person, are more informed. But I’m not sure if access to
information is awareness. Actually we might in some ways suffer from distortions about the world
because the devices we use to stay informed monetize our engagement and that requires content
that gets your brain all aroused and angry or excited and that’s really heightened stuff. I think that
can result in a warped world view. So who the hell knows?
What power do you think shows like ‘Baby Everything’ have to actually change things? Is going
to see something like this is just a way of making people feel like they’re engaged with the problems
around them?
My work is influenced by my background in bouffon clown, and the bouffon comes to critique our
vanity and our stupidity and our hubris so I think it’d be against the bouffon ethos for me to set out
to change things and I wouldn’t inflate myself into believing that power is mine. This show is about
how you engage with the world’s problems and horrors, how to put a critical eye on your own self
inflated ideas of power, our own conflation of being informed about politics with the act of politics. I
have a line in the show “staying up to date on current affairs is kind of my activism.” cause that’s
what the character thinks but staying up to date on the news is not activism. I think too many people
have conflated that. Knowing things is not the same as doing things.
What role does improvisation play in ‘Baby Everything’?
A HUGE one! Oh, I love colliding with audiences! My work is narrative-driven, but improv-fueled. I see
you, audience! I think so much of what creates live risky, critique-filled work is the space for the
audience to respond and play. Like I said above, I don’t think I’m the master of changing things, but I
am very good at offering up my own flaws and failing to make a room that lets other folks offer up theirs and offer them freely! And it really all goes down with a spoonful of sugar. It’s ruckus interaction and it’s wild and funny as hell.
When setting out to write socially conscious work, how do you make sure you don’t fall behind
everything that’s happening around you during the process of creating a show?
I build my work to remain flexible and free! So if there’s something I’d like to add to the show
because of what’s happening in the world in real time I will just add it! Also, this is where improv is
so helpful, because I have a lot of freedom especially with the interactions I have with the audience.
What’s happening outside the room is invited in, not just by me, but by the people in the seats. They
aren’t performers and they won’t deny what’s happening based on some idea of continuity. It keeps
the show immediate, risky and shared.
How do you use audience participation to reinforce the themes and messages of ‘Baby
Everything’?
Well I kind of just open the window and the audience jumps out it. I ask them really direct questions
like where they would move if their country started to fall apart and then when they answer I ask
more questions, “why there? What makes it better than where you are? Do they have climate
change there? Do they have free healthcare?” I poll the audience about if the world is getting better
or worse. The themes are directly in conversation with the audience. I’m not burying the lede in this
show. Audience interaction can be really disarming for people and because of that they answer
honestly. And honesty is very funny and revealing. I usually need to only be present with what
someone in the audience is saying or doing by giving them a look or repeating what they’ve just said
and it will not only be funny but make a compelling critique.
Do shows like ‘Baby Everything’ need to explicitly talk about social media and the digital world
to be, or feel, relevant?
One of the themes in my show is how we engage with social media and the digital world so I do
speak about it directly, but I don’t think all shows need to do that to be relevant. But it’s explicit in
this show, I even reenact it. When I’m making work I try to explore the questions I have in my own
life and I was curious how absorbing so much information and images of horror were affecting me.
So for me it was relevant and important.