SFGate.com: "Sartre's 1944 play has been reimagined for the 21st century by two Canadian theater troupes. The Virtual Stage and Electric Company Theatre have joined forces to create a 'No Exit' that fuses the worlds of cinema and live theater. The show makes its U.S. premiere this week as part of the American Conservatory Theater season.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Sartre's 'No Exit': Multimedia opens a new window
SFGate.com: "Sartre's 1944 play has been reimagined for the 21st century by two Canadian theater troupes. The Virtual Stage and Electric Company Theatre have joined forces to create a 'No Exit' that fuses the worlds of cinema and live theater. The show makes its U.S. premiere this week as part of the American Conservatory Theater season.
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5 comments:
Though I haven't seen it, this interpretation of "No Exit" seems to be phenomenal in it's creativity. The idea of locking the actors up and filming them for this particular show is very innovative.
This really does show that pieces can be reworked and entirely reconceived. Also, it seems that the production aspects truly serve the piece.
I really wish I could see this production, No Exit is one of my favorite plays and I spent a large amount of time studying the french version of it (huis clos) in high school. I think bring multimedia into this production can extend the creativity of the piece by leaps and bounds and that this is the perfect show to bring these kinds of effects to.
I think the point that grabbed me within this article was Collier's quote of how the actors move towards the cameras, not the cameras moving towards the actors. There's something there about it staying theatrical despite its inherent media-infused aspect.
Media, especially with the current advancements in the technologies, has become the go-to-solve-everything thing in theatre these days, to the point where I think it gets added in a lot of productions just to have it, not because it actually adds anything to the production. So it's nice to see media and film being not just used but used in plays and in ways that MAKE SENSE to the overall production.
The notion of doing a live cinematic interpretation of this play is a really interesting one. Using cameras has the potential to both "open up" the bunker (making the space feel larger than it actually is, thanks to the camera angles) and to "shrink it in" (by using close-ups and other ways of focusing in on the actors). The only thing that's a bit off-putting is the nearly bare stage with the valet wandering around - why not put the bunker visibly on stage so that we can see the size of it and take that into consideration when looking at the screens to see what's inside?
To me this sort of parallels our production of The Alice Project, in the sense that it is an older classic with a new vision imposed upon it. Whether this is a good choice for the production isn't something I can say without seeing it, however it does seem like a riveting concept. The idea of integrating media and live filming into a theatre piece is a fascinating one, if hard to achieve. I'd love to see how this one will pan out.
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