Friday, February 01, 2008
Danger! Theatre can affect your health
Guardian Unlimited: "One of my earliest theatre-going memories is of a performance of Toad of Toad Hall which was halted during the final battle for Toad Hall when one of the actors hurtled off the stage and into the orchestra pit and had to be carted off to hospital. Over the years, I've seen actors suffer a number of accidents on the job, most of them minor. But it seems that being a member of the audience is becoming more hazardous too. In Chicago last week, a lawsuit was filed against the Blue Man Group by an audience member who claimed that a camera was forced down his throat - causing damage to his oesophagus - during a piece of audience participation that has been part of the show in performances all over the world."
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6 comments:
Because the Blue Man "incident" actually happened..
This article is weak..
I guess it is true that recently, there is more audience participation than in recent years, but there was a lot of audience participation in Shakespeare's time, too. No one was "traumatized" then. It's entertainment. It's not like the people in magic shows are random audience members, people are asked before the show even starts if it's okay for them to participate, etc.
Whiner.
I feel like the author of this article was just searching for random examples of audience particpation run amuck, without actually doing the research or talking to people about the shows. Although the point is well taken (I spent all of Blue Man Group huddling in my seat hoping that no one would pick me) the article lacks sincereity.
An article mostly about examples of audience participation. Something tells me that this issue has been thought of before, and there are more then likely a few warnings about the risks of audience participation. The article does address the secret desire of the individual audience member to be up on stage, but he never really goes into the potential for legal issues.
Admittingly, there should be lines drawn on what an audience member can and cannot due. They are guests, not performers, and want to be entertained, but only at the cost of their ticket. If shows want to use audience participation or rouse laughs wby breaking the fourth wall I saw go for it. However, when it comes to stupid stunts, like mentioned in the bLUE man group, they should do what Cirque does, esepcially in "O" and plant their own people in the audience. (Perhaps they do and the writer simply does not know this. I know I don't because I know nothing about this show). Still I liek the fourth wall being broken, but perhaps that's just my personality and audience members vary to much to break grounds like that too often.
Personally I find audience interaction interesting. It's unique and makes every show different. This author said absolutely nothing about Blue Man Group however the article seems to have been written because of this instance? While the writer does provide previous examples from the past and puts an interesting perspective on it I think she kind of misses the point that it's entertainment and that probably 1 in 10 million audience members in the world are harmed in anyway from seeing theatre.
I can understand people's desires to participate in productions, many people will do just about anything to get on stage or in front of the camera, just look at all the people who are awful at singing who show up for American idle in hopes that they will end up on the list of worst auditions for the day. However the bigger issue is that this behavior is not hazardous to the health of the participants, and in increase in the hazardous audience participation acts is alarming. But ultimately, it is the responsibility of the company and the audience member to make sure that the audience participation acts are safe and within the comfort zone of the people participating.
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