Friday, April 08, 2011
Comic Books and Theatre, Together at Last:
Stage Directions: "Superheroes. Space opera. True romance. Hijinks. History. Literature. Autobiography. Lines. Dots. Shapes. Pencil. Sound. Ink. Movement. This summer The Brick Theater, Inc. will invite one of history’s newest art forms to meet one of its oldest as part of the first ever Comic Book Theater Festival. Through collaborations between visual and dramatic artists this exciting new festival will feature both live stage performance and printed or online comic book components to each show, making the form and content of comics collide with the content and form of theatre to create strange new hybrids across both mediums! Also, superheroes and stuff.
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I'm not sure how I feel about this. I read comics as a kid and interestingly enough didn't pick-up comics again until I started working in the theater. The theater itself is already such an escape from reality. When I wanted a way to escape that I went to comic books. Captain Marvel, Batman, Green Lantern have nothing to do with the stage. Until now. With Spiderman on Broadway, Batman in the UK, and this festival of comic inspired theater pieces I may have been wrong.
Reading the descriptions of these shows, most seem tongue-in-cheek or just plan satirical. I never bought the idea of theater as a mirror but a costumed superhero on the stage I'd imagine would be very hard to empathize or relate to. Super hero movies are essentially still comics: 2d representations of a superhero narrative. Putting the superhero in 3d space, live theater may exaggerate their circumstances and alienate an audience. Similiar to seeing cartoon characters in real live at Disneyland; large grotesque representations of drawings. While it may be fun to see a different type of story, I think the comics will be better felt on the page and not on the stage.
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