Post Gazette: "Playwright Madeleine George confesses that she's been a spy, eavesdropping on conversations between zoo-goers and taking notes on them. Pittsburghers might call her 'nebby,' but her efforts were all in the name of research.
'I really just wanted to hear what people sounded like,' Ms. George admitted, 'and sure, I took notes on what people said. We talked about it. At first, they thought I was a biologist or something.'
1 comment:
I really love the idea behind this show. Apes are intelligent beings, but they live and communicate differently from us. It seems as though this study of communication might transcend the lines of human-animal communication, but even comment on the ways that we, as people, communicate differently from each other. There is a common thread that links our communication methods all together, regardless of the language that we speak. (This actually reminds me of our discussion with Joe Pino the other day about innate facial expressions and what they mean across cultures.) I think the beauty in the differences of groups of people, and even animals, is the way that we can understand each other, even without actually understanding each other's formal languages. I'm happy to see that this play is bringing that element of nature to light, and that it is bringing science and other studies together with theatre. The more that we collaborate with other disciplines to make theatre, the better we become at reaching through to all of our different audiences.
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