Saturday, January 15, 2011
Shakespeare Theatre offers broadcasts from London's National Theatre
Washingtonpost.com: "Audiences here have been watching broadcasts of big-time theater staged 3,600 miles away through a partnership with the National Theatre. And so it is that this spring, Washington audiences will get to see 'Fela!' and Danny Boyle's take on 'Frankenstein' without draining their frequent flier miles.
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4 comments:
I think that this is a very interesting idea. I am really interested in getting theater to a broader audience for two reasons. If people stop coming to fill seats we have no job, and also with a more diverse audience there will be a more diverse group of people doing theater. This makes for more exciting, engaging, and different work. I think that there are ways in which theater can be caught on film (for instance The Spike Lee adaptation of Passing Strange). I think that theater just needs a translator for film. I am all in support of more different types of people getting to experience theater.
I think this is a great idea. These screenings are bringing theater to people who normally wouldn't have to opportunity to watch theater. This gets more people interested and theater and brings us a new and diverse audience. Hopefully after seeing theater on a movie screen these people will seek out live theater or make their own theater shows.
I would be interested in exploring the concept of using Ultra High Definition Video (UHDV) and a screen that fully fills a given theatre’s proscenium to create a life size reproduction of a show in two dimensions.
Like I said on the Guthrie article, the audience makes a big difference in these shows. The fact that the showing of Fela! is astounding, and that show will be an excellent one. Dale brings up a really interesting point about filling the entire proscenium with a 2D version of the show. While I can appreciate that for certain scenes, I think the advantage of filming the show is that it can do the close-up shots that you can't get by seeing the show live. The additional material like interviews and backstage tours just adds another incentive to see the film. So while you can't replicate the intangible feeling of being in the theatre with the performers, the filmed version certainly has the potential to be very engaging and have its own draws that could not be experienced in the theate.
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