Sunday, July 08, 2012
Robot and Human Actors Take Bows Together
NYTimes.com: CLUTCHING their scripts, Jeannette Newton and Will Russell climb onstage for a lunchtime rehearsal of a skit that will be part of New Albany High School’s end-of-year production. On cue the actors turn stage right, waiting for their co-star to make an entrance. There is a long awkward pause until a ninth grader, Mitchell Gabel, pokes his head out from backstage.
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Robots. We have robots. In the 21st century we have high school students putting robots in their musicals onstage. This is amazing, and fantastic, and also kind of terrifying. But think of the places theater can go with robotics! Love it,
Upon first glance, I thought this would be an article about how Theatre was moving towards the direction of a Disney World attraction such as The Hall of Presidents. However, upon further inspection I realized that robots aren't only "acting" (if you can call it that for a robot), but also simply teaching acting students hard to grasp fundamentals about simple movement. I believe that robots could be a great new tool to teach the kids some of the hardest things to learn about theatre that could enhance the world of theatre for us all.
When looking at the history of theater, we can see how over time with the progression of technology, there has been a growth in the various departments that work on a production. The use of projections and even sound design are relatively young fields in the theater industry, and now it seems that there is a new field budding. Robots are yet another cool piece of technology that has been adopted by theaters, and even though they might not serve a purpose for every show put under production, I am excited to see their development within the theater industry.
While I can appreciate the motives for beginning to include more technology in the theatre business, and can appreciate the effort being made to create a more interesting and engaging experience though doing so, I do not think that there will ever be any business in a completely electronic and robotic theatre. In my opinion, it is the ability to relate to human experiences that makes us feel included in a theatre piece. While movies such as Wall-e were successful, it was not the futuristic world that drew in audiences, but rather the common emotion of love shared between him and Eve and the longing to be with those of his own kind. In movies such as Star Wars, characters such as C-3PO and R2-D2 add comic relief instead of being vital characters to the plot. I think that, as technology continues to develop, it will begin to have an increasingly larger role in theatre, perhaps even as actors, but it is the emotion, pain, separation, and joy that can only be experienced by human-kind that will make people relate to characters. Unless artificial emotion can be created in robots, I believe that automation should remain in the technical aspect of theatre.
I think that robotic innovations in theatre is definitely a huge leap forward. The article mentions the ease of understanding a character's emotions before they even open their mouth, but with robots and robotic actors, it becomes much more difficult to show the emotion. Figuring out ways to use body language to show these emotions is an excellent way to study even further ways of acting through movement. Robotic innovations have always been very prominent in theatre, including the addition of automated scenery, and even more basic, the introduction of electric lights. The use of these robots as actors is an extremely exciting evolution for the history of theatre, and I am extremely excited to see where it goes.
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