This wasn’t a wizened mixologist’s quip but a scripted line, declaimed while standing atop the bar as his character, Caleb, kicked off a two-hour marathon of 25 one-act plays called “Play/Date” set in the bar’s banquettes and on the bar stools on a recent Wednesday night.
2 comments:
This is really cool. Challenges incite innovation, and this is certainly a challenge. A show like “Play/Date” calls for such intricate isolation for both sound and lights. It was very smart, and I assume a necessity, to have the stage manager walking around the bar in between the scenes to call the cues. Multiple scenes taking place at the same time with the actors talking over each over and the crowd sounds like a nightmare, but really is just an opportunity.
As for the Shakespeare show they make a very good point about the audience Shakespeare’s plays were intended for. I don’t think the actors are supposed to be drunk, but the audience was more than not. Today we associate Shakespeare with such high culture, simply because of how it’s written. It’s good to see us reverting back to the roots.
It’s so interesting how last week I completely agreed that forced audience participation did not work. However these types of shows blow that out of the water by utilizing it effectively.
I've personally never been a fan of proscenium theatre. In smaller spaces it gets a little better, but there's nothing I despise more than working in a giant auditorium where you have to squint to get a sense of anything going on onstage. I'm a firm believer in immersive theatrical experiences-- ditch the opera glasses! Get onstage with the actors! Don't just sit there in your box seat, do something!! "The audience is the sixth character in the play."
However, due to the fact that I do most of my work in a high school theater, I don't have much variance in the format of the shows I work on. And due to the fact that I'm a teenager living in the suburbs with a curfew of nightfall, I don't often get to experience any works of devised theatre. Thus, it's always a joy to read articles such as this one, just to get a sense of what I'm missing.
Play/Date sounds awesome. From what I can see, it sounds like a perfectly normal nightclub experience, except in this case, you're encouraged to eavesdrop. What a brilliant idea! It's a raw and natural human desire to know exactly what is going on in the lives of others. This show allows the audience to completely indulge themselves as they're given a perfectly ordinary scenario with the freedom to act on their guilty pleasures. Play/Date is an excellent study in voyeurism.
I was also happy to read about the new forms of presenting Shakespeare. I'm actually not that preoccupied with the fact that Shakespeare's plays were originally meant for the rowdy working class; art can adapt to the society it finds itself in, and I see no problem with Shakespeare becoming a thing of highbrow academics. But for reasons of my own personal enjoyment, Drunk Shakespeare sounds awesome. As an avid fan of the Bard, I definitely enjoy studying his works seriously in an academic setting, but most of my Shakespearean love stems from the interactions I get with my like-minded peers. There's nothing better than swapping theories and joking with kids who have also read Hamlet religiously. So to me, Drunk Shakespeare is exciting less because of returning to Shakespearean roots, and more because of my own relationship with Shakespeare's works.
Altogether, this article was a great read and I'm thrilled with all the changes theatre is going through.
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