Real Talk

Our society is always interested in the ‘real’; we want the truth and want to see real things happening to other people. Reality TV, sports, You Tube and many other forms of entertainment are always consumed more when we know something really happened. Twitter plays, durationals and futurist pieces are all about embracing real time, performing right here, right now. The time and pace of these forms of theatre are more believable to an audience, as opposed to going to see a play that covers a substantial amount of time. Take for example; since we all saw this play, Frankenstein, this play covers duration of two years in these characters lives. But obviously we aren’t sitting in the Shaver Theatre for two consecutive years, (which sounds like torture), the actors, technicians and directors have to help the audience believe that the time has transpired, which is asking the audience to suspend the disbelief quite a bit, to make the story feel real and truthful. We do this by changing costumes and having monologues that fill in the moments that aren’t played out, hence the reality effect we have been talking about can not be fulfilled, at least not to the most believable degree.

This is what Twitter plays do for us; they take out that suspention of disbelief and make these plays as real in time as possible. As we read for example, Such Tweet Sorrow, the carrying out of Romeo and Juliet in real time, Juliet making comments like, “It happened, cutest boy ever”. This seems more enticing to us because the characters lives are more relatable to audience members, instead of actors and playwrights, bringing you into their parameters of time, we get to share time together. I can relate more to a dramatic tweet that is posted at 3:00AM that says, “I can’t sleep, my boyfriend has to get out of here in an hour, so my parents don’t freak out #starcrossedlover”.

Relating back to my example above, Frankenstein takes you through a vague timeframe of two years; it would be interesting to do a Tweet play that has the pace of really being performed over the course of two years. Pace is an interesting part of the Twitter plays that allows us to indulge in the time it takes for some of these characters to go through these huge moments in their lives. We see the example of the, Next to Normal Titter play, that is performed over a duration of thirty five days, this in it of itself makes the drama more realistic, as two hours doesn’t do justice to the amount of time this family has to deal with their issues.

An example of pace and time that I think was very effective, was the durational film, Boyhood. This film documents a boy aging from a child through his early twenties. Now this is not a special effect or Benjamin Button situation. The director cast a young boy and took 12 years to film the project, watching one person literally age in real time. Not only did we see the same actor age, but also the entire cast remained the same. This to me was a major commitment to time and pace, allowing a project to take the time it needed to be as real as possible. You could also argue that the Harry Potter movies did the same thing, we watched pace and time be used to watch real people really getting older.

Regardless if the work is on Twitter, a stage or film, time and pace are tools that can really change up the way we entertain and effect the public. We can use new ways to reach out to an audience that is always focused on right here, right now.

Site theatre can be a very useful and bring a new wave of hope for theatre. The idea of putting theatre into the actual space it is to be performed, brings a new view to naturalist theatre. Everything is a little more believable, the audience doesn't need to suspend any disbelief, they don't have to imagine they are in a hotel or insane asylum, they are in it, experiencing it.

So an example I was thinking of, is the cult classic, the Rocky Horror Picture Show. If you were to set it in a remote mansion in the middle of no where, maybe even have the audience meet on the side of the road and walk to the mansion much like Janet and Brad do. The whole mansion can be creepy along with a laboratory that the audience can go to to see Rocky come to life. Maybe even invite the audience to the dinner scene? This would be a great production to do, you could even mirror the idea that the production of Sleep No More did, and make the audience all be time warpers, that way they can be a part of the show as well and be more willing to participate in the production.

As for the quote, I do think to an extent that theatre has been neutralized. Especially when it comes to popular theatre that caters to the happy musicals and Christmas plays, however, I don't think this in entirely the theatre's fault. I think that our society has lost a certain capacity for theatre and confronting issues head on, and appreciates entertainment that makes people feel good, rather than deal with harder material. But I think that if the theatre tries to use it's powers to invite and celebrate all walks of life we could get it back into the interests of society.

Are we in danger of loosing the only present art form? I think this depends on the artists such as our selves to keep it alive. We as theatre people can read these articles and express what is present what is performance, when really, it is up to the audience and the world to decide. When Addie referenced Acconci's, Seedbed, I would definitely  say that the general public would not understand this, and would for the most part not consider this to be art. However, they can't deny that it is present, since we can gage when a person has completed this particular act, it is very in the moment.  It is a real action with a real result, which can't be faked in order to leave an impact, which is what art is all about. We look for shock value as a society and I think the general public feeds on that, which is why in certain performance, doing something for real will invoke a feeling in the audience, where imitation will not. We could loose theatre, I think it's very possible but we have to commit to bringing the theatre into the 21st century.

I think that Huyssen's idea on 'imagined memory ' is interesting, and reminds me of my time just before I moved to Louisiana. Right before I moved here, the giant oil spill happened. Everyday at my waiting job I watched CNN report on the spill. How the community reacted, the state of affairs for locals and fishermen. This made me apprehensive to move to Louisiana, also at this time hurricanes were hitting Louisiana. All of these events reported on the news put a different idea into my head about Louisiana in general and added to my apprehension of moving here. I was very nervous when I left, and was convinced I was moving to an area of crisis and devastation. When I moved here I realized that the media made all of the events seem as if they were more intense then they really were. Those events happened, but the locals point of view was drastically different to what I had seen in Colorado on the news. It goes to show, that the media has a large hold of our opinions and effects our point of view in a huge way. The media can come up with its own version of truth and make it a reality for all of us watching.