Mildly Minnesotan: I always gets excited when I see performing arts groups that are gaining momentum and doing well for themselves. Minnesota Fringe darlings Transatlantic Love Affair are no exception. This physical theatre ensemble formed in 2010 to produce their first Fringe show, Ballad of the Pale Fisherman. It was a huge success. With their 2011 production Red Resurrected, audiences were anxious to see if they could follow up with another memorable show. They did, and then again this past summer for the 2012 Fringe. Then, to top it off, co-artistic director Isabel Nelson recently won the Emerging Artist Ivey Award. Yay!
2 comments:
This article seems to describe a touring theatre company from victorian england. While I am sure that they have an innovative stylistic vision it seems that with the actors being the technicians and the show being self contained and adapted to small spaces and a core group of performers we have come full circle. With competition from television and film the idea of making a living as a traveling bard seems to be making a comeback. It may just be a hipster reaction like steam punk but it seems like we are going back in theatre history because it is hard to make it as a theatre company in small markets.
Transatlantic Love Affair sounds peculiarly like Pigpen in a curious amount of aspects, including the slow build of their success through Fringe seasons, the indie/acapella singing to accompany the simple and classic tale, and the actors behaving as technicians... Even the story for which they seem to be the most famous, the Ballad of the Pale Fisherman, draws an almost uncomfortable amount of parallels to one of Pigpen's performances. The main difference being the Ivey award, but I feel like Pigpen has managed to attain equivalent success through different means. I think that there is definitely something to the apparent hipstery uprising that is starting to creep in on theater. The do-it-yourself kind of aesthetic is becoming increasingly appealing, which, although I also love watching it, gives me a tiny bit of selfish unease as a designer who is most certainly not going to also be an actor in a little storytelling company.
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