thestar.com: "Jersey Shore, live on stage? Not quite. Or at least not yet. Movies and television routinely blur the line between fantasy and reality. But innovative stage companies are only beginning to explore the possibilities of what might loosely be dubbed “reality theatre.”
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Plays & Reality TV
thestar.com: "Jersey Shore, live on stage? Not quite. Or at least not yet. Movies and television routinely blur the line between fantasy and reality. But innovative stage companies are only beginning to explore the possibilities of what might loosely be dubbed “reality theatre.”
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11 comments:
The title of this article is fairly misleading, I think. But I am relieved there are no plans to put "Snookie! The Musical" on Broadway just yet. While it's interesting, I'm not sure I get what makes all three "reality plays." Just because a play depicts real events doesn't necessarily make it "reality," does it? If that were true, many of the movies we enjoy would have to be called documentaries and not dramas. I appreciate what the author is doing here - highlighting lesser-done forms of theatre - but, combined with the misleading title, seems a little sensationalistic...
Are these plays depictions of "reality tv" or just reality? The fact that these plays are trying to depict reality is interesting. To me reality tv is unscripted, raw footage, that is edited to show the content in the light the producers want. Reality in theatre is always somewhat present, but scripted. The fact that these productions predict reality in a scripted way makes me feel that there is no connection to reality tv. The playwrights may be using concepts seen in reality tv, but that does not mean they are using reality tv as a basis, they are just commenting on society.
When the author says that these shows are depicting people in "real" situations then that would make other theater fake, but in essence all of it is fake. Unless you take random audience members and put them on stage then you will not have something "real". If you put random audience members on stage is it still a play? Doesn't it then become improve, or just real life. Also don't people go to a shows to watch people that are trained, or at least different from themselves? I guess you could make the argument that art should reflect life, but I don't think that it needs to be life, I think that kind of ruins it's value. But I really don't consider the shows the author lists to be reality.
It is interesting how Broverman thinks that just because a play depicts reality, it is like reality TV. Unless the actors are doing improvisation, there is something scripted, and yes, reality TV is often times scripted, but then how is it different than being compared to a movie that is based on a true story? Although it is great to see these different forms of theatre being produced, I believe the comparison to reality TV was weak. It seems very much that the only difference is that the story being told is non-fiction instead of fiction.
We are overlooking the fact that what makes television so popular is the same thing that makes theater so popular: human beings are perverse voyeurs. Where else can we sit only a few feet away from another human being (pretending to be a different thing altogether) both participants aware of each yet pretending they don't exist? On our couches at home as well. It's even more addictive when it is reality tv, TV that calls attention to itself.
I don't think reality tv really exists, perhaps it can be called Brechtian TV. What this article is describing it just another blurring of those voyeuristic rules and convetions of the theater. Brecht did this with conventions and presentation, verbatim playwrights are doing this with subject matter and form.
So Jersey shore on stage? It's been done already.
I agree with the general consensus that this is a poor comparison to reality tv. Thank god. If they ever do "Snookie! the musical" i will shoot myself. I agree that some of the shows in the article are more like improve. I once saw a improved musical. It was the coolest thing ever. I personally hate most reality tv. In some countries the only impressions people have of americans is reality tv. That baffles me.
One thing that everyone seems to forget is that "reality" tv isn't reality. It's scripted too! The Real World? The editors fabricate and create situations and arguments for the audience. All of the people on those shows are actors of themselves.
However people are right about reality being portrayed on stage just sounds like a realistic play to me. I'm not saying theater isn't, but it just seems like anything that would be an an attempt at "reality" theater would just end up as a social experiment.
Really, the only difference between this and reality TV, in its purest definition, is the post-production editing. The show "Sick!" discussed in the article sounds exactly like something that would air on MTV. Although society now has a preconceived notion that all reality TV is bad, this doesn't really seem that different. The producers of these shows will likely still find a way to edit the content, by screening the audience members they use in the play or any other method that they can find. If this really becomes a popular trend, bad forms of it will certainly pop up like in any medium, including reality television
I have a hard time wrapping my head around why "non-verbatim" plays are associated with reality TV more readily than documentaries...Theatre is a medium for a community by the nature of its function as a social gathering. This means that it can have significant more focus and provide a new look on community issues which reminds me of the article on Second City a few weeks ago and the effort they put forth to be relevant to the areas they were performing in.
This article made me appreciate playwrights. This is an interesting article but when I think back on theater that has impacted me the most, it is always the writing that makes the difference. Plays by Tom Soppard, Yasmina Reza or Roger Rueff will always be more compelling than "reality theatre".
I would love to see a production of this style. First off that they set out to improve the human condition not mock it in the way that television does. You can get some very solid content with audience members talking about rough times in their lives or things along those lines would connect the other audience members to the production in a way that any rehearsed theatre could never do. Each production would be unique and only exist in that instance which would be an incredible experience for an audience member.
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