Returning to Behaviour: Peter McMaster and Extremes
Ahead of BEHAVIOUR's sixth year, Peter McMaster talks about the support The Arches has always given him, pushing his work to extremes, and his show 27.
Now in its sixth year, The Arches' BEHAVIOUR festival has very quickly become not just a stalwart of Scottish theatre, but one of the most highly anticipated and exciting events of the theatrical year. BEHAVIOUR can be depended on in the ways that it will challenge its artists and its audiences, pushing boundaries while simultaneously providing a support that keeps its artists and audiences working and returning to the festival.
Peter McMaster, winner of the 2013 Arches Platform 18 award, is back at Behaviour this year with 27. McMaster acknowledges the support he has always felt from The Arches, and in particular this festival. “Unlike some of the other major institutions in Glasgow and Scotland that support or produce contemporary performance/theatre, BEHAVIOUR always feels like a more accepting place to present my work. I have always been very supported by the Arches staff and community, and I feel like my relationship with them has always been about facilitating my growth as an artist by providing me with periods of support, where all that is expected of me is to be my own artist. This is a rarity that makes that building and what it does feel like a special place. I suppose I carry this sense with me when I present at BEHAVIOUR, in a way where I want to honour that relationship by presenting my work at the festival.”
The Platform 18 award in particular, for an all-male Wuthering Heights, placed McMaster's work on a national level for the first time. "It got a lot of exposure," he reflects. "I also challenged myself to make work that felt like it could be presented on a more national/international level and I think in order to do this, I surpassed my own expectations of what I thought I could do. I think this resulted in a piece of work that had a lot of urgent energy to it. The subject matter, which was exploring particularly troubled experiences of masculinity in the cast who performed it, also felt like a timely enquiry in the wider community. People felt like it was a relevant issue to be looking at, and I think this is what made it attractive to programme, or why it became nominated for awards.”
This energy and exploration of masculinity carries forward into 27, which he describes as: “imbued with the notions of extreme; extreme intimacy, extreme physicality, extreme exposure. I was interested in the lifestyles of the artists that make up the 27 club- this is where my research for 27 began. As an artist who also is that age, I wanted to draw comparison between my own life, my own – often extreme – desires for my art work, and the work of these artists who ended up dying at this age.”
Although McMaster highlights that “within the context of other contemporary performance makers, my work probably doesn’t seem that far out,” he explains the desire to embrace extremes in his work. “I am interested in experiences that test my understanding of what it means to be who I am in the world. I believe we humans have massive potential and capacity to be constantly learning, always contributing new insight into our struggles, our joys, for a better state of being in our lives, within a world that is rapidly being destroyed by us. But it takes breaking away from particular capitalist expectations in order to do that – whether that is about your gender, ethnicity, sexuality or work-related statuses.”
The ethos of “risk-taking and experimentation”, coupled with its supportive atmosphere, explains why BEHAVIOUR grows ever bigger, and why artists such as McMaster keep on returning to this festival.