Stage | theguardian.com: I'm seriously beginning to wonder whether the Edinburgh international festival has yet to experience that new-fangled technology called the electric light, or whether they might still be writing on parchment using quill pens. While director Jonathan Mills has programmed his 2013 festival with a technological theme, supposedly exploring "the way technology seizes and shifts our perceptions of the world, translated and made manifest by artistic visionaries," most of the theatre shows seem oddly old-fashioned.
6 comments:
"seem so weighed down by technology, not liberated by it."
In my opinion this is an interesting quote.
Some of the new shows are so technological, lots of effects, people flying around, videos, smoke, etc.
But these effects don't necessarily make the show any better. A lot of times, I feel like they take the heart out of the show.
For instance, I saw Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies (the sequel).
Love Never Dies was full of effects, mainly video effects. And I felt like the show really lost a lot of it's heart. Instead of being about the music it was more about the strange scenery and effect. It wasn't about the characters anymore. In comparison to Phantom of the Opera, a much older musical which even today is still performing similarly to the original production, Phantom has much more heart even though it has much less effects.
The answer to the the title of the article is that, It depends. If you have a good theatrical piece and you add effective digital effects, then it can absolutely be beneficial. However, I think problems occur with shows that try to hide weak productions with too many gimmicks or alternatively the story gets lost in the effects.
I love when all of the elements work together and create an amazing piece of theatre!
I definitely agree with JamilaCobham. It depends on the show. Hopefully the directors and designers have studied the script and included technology that is suitable in conveying the overall message and theme of the piece. Technology can obviously hurt a show, but it can also add an element of intrigue and beauty that couldn't be obtained in any other age.
Technology, in the right hand can definitely take a plays message to the next level. When I went to see The Normal Heart a few years ago they used several projectors to project the names of people who had passed away due to AIDS after each scene on the theater's walls and as time passed in the play the number of names grew and spread throughout the entire theater. It was a great way to drive the emotional tone and message of the play home. I think that as long as technology is used in that vain or is truly helping to move they story along it is a help, but can easily become a hinderance.
Like Jamila said, it absolutely depends on the show. More than that, it depends on the message that the production team wants to convey. If the show as a script is something that calls for three walls and some lighting, and no additional technology, but the message of the production team has to do with technology and its interaction with this "non-technological" world, than technology could work very well. The problem with technology in theatre is that it sometimes isn't used well, and is only used for spectacle, which leads many in the audience to see it as excessive or worthless. Technology is neither good nor bad... it depends how it is used and by whom and for what purpose.
There is definitely no straight answer to this question. The mantra "there is some version of every production that can be done on any any budget and any timeline" comes as close to answering this question for me, as anything else. Projections and other exciting new technologies have done a lot for live entertainment, but they are by no means necessary.The article raises a question about in which situations these elements detract form the production. After all the magic of theater is often created in the mind of the audience member who is forced to fill in the information he is not given. JamilaCobham hit the nail on the head. "It depends."
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