Marc El Samrani It's been a few days that we're in Sotteville-lès-Rouen, at Atelier 231, for you to work on the French adaptation of your project, “A Thousand Ways”, which is the third part of a bigger project called AN ASSEMBLY. So we've seen a couple of groups going into that room, participating in the project and going out in very different ways. We're going to talk about this a bit later. But I'd love to know, first of all, why the name, why the title of this project? What is “A Thousand Ways”? A thousand ways of what? 

Abigail Browde I mean, it was also in the early conceit of the project. We originally designed the project to happen for a thousand people simultaneously. I only remember this as you were talking. And so it was this idea that something there would be a set of instructions from us, that the piece would exist as a set of instructions or a kind of script or a set of directives, but that every person doing it was going to do it slightly differently than the other people in the room. And so the idea of "A Thousand Ways" of doing something represented all the people who would be doing, activating, making the project.

Michael Silverstone I think that's what I like about the title is that, first of all, there's something really large about it. So I feel like it captures the mythic, sort of epic qualities of the simplicity of a small assembly of people. So I think there's a really interesting contradiction that you buy a ticket for this thing called “A Thousand Ways”. It has this sort of large, ephemeral, and mysterious quality to it, and yet you're just 16 people in the room. And I think there's a tension in that. It's really simple. There's a room full of people and a deck of cards, and yet it seems like this could go thousands of ways. And yeah, it suggests, as you know, as we know, no performance is like any other. So even though the script stays the same, and everything stays the same, people are different and the interpretation is different. The tone is different. So, yeah, I feel like “A Thousand Ways” captures the sort of infinite possibilities of how this could go.

Michael Silverstone Do you think so?

Marc El Samrani Well I have some questions about it, but the difference between public and a group, like the shift that happens during the show, the public becomes a group. I personally believe that any kind of performance involves participation by the public, even though they're just watching a show, they are participating in some way in creating that world that the show can initiate. But in your performance it's very active participation, to create that virtual space between people. So how would you define the public, or how would you define public space? Because I think what emerges from this performance is kind of an atypical public space.

Abigail Browde I mean, one thing I notice from an English-speaking perspective is I think of the word "public" as an adjective. I don't think of it as a noun. And I find that when we travel, especially in European countries, that the word "public" is often used as a noun to define a group of people as an audience or a group, sort of a gathering of humans or spectators. So, often my English-speaking brain thinks of it as a descriptor. And to me, something that's public is something that's accessible. Something that's available for people to enter or access. And so public space to me is that. It's like the porous spaces, places that people can come into, penetrate, enter or access. And I also think of our work as theater. And so we often think of the theaters that we work in because we do often work in sort of conventional theater rooms. But I think we often try to approach them as if they are civic or public spaces, even though they might not technically be. You do sometimes have to buy a ticket, they might not necessarily be sort of culturally accessible to everybody, but how can we sort of reclaim theaters as places of civic happening? I don't think that's like a seed, like a starting seed for our work. But I do think it's something that's like as a result of our work. It's a question that we ask. I don't think it's like a mission for us, but it's something that comes about as a product of the work that we do. Yeah, I mean, I think that people enter into the beginning of this performance (...) and  they're entering into a space that they aren't in control of or that they are subservient to. And by the end, I think there's a feeling of ownership of the experience, of the group, of the room that belongs to that.

Marc El Samrani So if you've experienced the show many times, what kind of impressions are left on you, not as the creator of the show, but as participants of the show?

Abigail Browde Actually for me, I think it's hard to peel those two things apart because whenever I am attending it, I'm often thinking of it from a writing or creative perspective and not 100% just existing within that. I'm sort of listening and thinking, should that be a little different? Or is that what we did? Also, there's our writing and there's our sort of directing of the show, like giving the set of instructions within there, seeing how people do it. It's hard to quiet that side of my brain when I'm in it. But if I could, I guess the thing that I take away from it, or like the experience that I like the most is, is when things actually do not go according to plan, because I'm like, oh no, we have to fix it so it doesn't go off the rails. And usually within a couple minutes I realize, this is actually pretty beautiful, this way of getting off the rails. And the group will find a way through it and that sort of sufficiency or that group dynamic of almost survival is actually usually ten times more interesting than what we had planned.

Abigail Browde You have to dance with two sides of your brain at the same time. One is just purely mechanics. It's like, okay how are we going to get these people to do that? At the same time, you can't focus purely on mechanics, then it's a very cold experience. And so, at least for me, it's very easy to get lost in the puppeteering of people, for lack of a better term. And then you're not actually engaging with the audience and the experience? What's at the heart of this experience? 

Marc El Samrani Have you had any feedback from people that went into the show? 

Abigail Browde I think it's a hard show to talk about. And sometimes I think I get a little self-conscious. I'm like, oh, it's because no one liked it. But I actually think that it might be hard to talk about, especially because, and I just realized this actually last night during a conversation with someone who did it here, (...) you don't know what's on the other people's cards. Sometimes you can have a sense of what they're saying, that it's what's being given to them. And sometimes I think there's a question of are they doing what's been told? Sometimes people are unsure of how to talk about their experience because you're kind of evaluating how you and your cohort did, and it's hard to evaluate it in that way. I think people will say very general things like "It was moving" or "we had a really nice time". But I think it's a hard show to get specific about, for people to observe and relay that experience, unless it’s with other members of the performance. Because I actually notice after the show, people tend to stay and talk to one another. And I think most people are comfortable talking with the people they've been through the experience with rather than other people. 

Michael Silverstone None that we can see. I mean, I think the show is kind of like a sponge in the sense that  it absorbs the people who are in it. And it changes in subtle ways based on the people who are there, but we can't really see any (big changes). I mean, I can't at least. 

Abigail Browde I don't know if it's cultural, but like when we were doing the shows in Massachusetts, we’re in a very small New England town in the United States, and the performances were slightly different from the ones we did in New York City. 

Marc El Samrani Well, actually, when you were working outside, have you ever experienced having a public watching the group perform... 

Abigail Browde Creating a secondary audience?

Michael Silverstone Like, you come out and suddenly there's all these people around and you're sort of showing the thing that you're doing, and there's a strangely performative aspect to it. Suddenly you're a group of people who know a way of being together, and you're doing this very private, very intimate, shared thing. And I guess that could be really cool…

Abigail Browde And I think it also puts the relationship you have with these other people in relief. It's like you were once out here as a stranger, sort of like floating in islands. And you went into the room, you had this experience, and now you've come out and you've emerged a collective, and actually everyone else is the stranger now, and you are a universe. And I think that's always pretty remarkable to me how little it takes, actually, for that to happen. Like, there's something about humans. It's like we're really pre-programed for that proximity, I think. But. We just need containers to make it happen somehow.