AMERICAN THEATRE: Brechtian anti-immersion gets an upgrade in 7 Stages’s The Threepenny Opera (Sept. 9-25). Using live-feed video projection, director Michael Haverty aims to suggest the grimy aesthetic of German expressionist cinema, notably Weimar-era filmmakers Fritz Lang (Metropolis) and Robert Wiene (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari)—the kinds of films that were in theatres when the Brecht/Weill piece premiered in Berlin in 1928.
6 comments:
It’s been a while since Theatre History for me, but if I remember correctly, Brecht applied the alienation effect in order to discourage emotional absorption and encourage intellectual engagement. It’s supposed to keep you from shutting off your brain. In that sense, I’m not sure if this production is “faithful to Brecht” in the way the director claims. It sounds like “Brechtian” is being applied like an aesthetic and that the technological spectacle could distract audiences from engaging intellectually. Is it actually helping us think? Or are we just going, “Oh, Cool!”
Does the alienation effect even challenge audiences anymore given how comfortable we are with self-aware and “meta” art and the ubiquity of screen-mediated entertainment/information? Is that kind of ‘alienation’ really interesting anymore? Is there another way to make people engage?
There are so many aspects of modernizing and recreating older genres and pieces of art that I can't get enough of. In general, I feel as though integrating and reinventing live theatre in a way that incorporates both themes that may seem archaic to modern audiences as well as deeply integrated media design elements. It seems as though media is the way to the theatrical future, and I'm interested and excited to start seeing even more media design, and in particular live camera elements, on more mainstream stages moving forward. I can assume that the majority of younger theatre audiences are not running into the house of their local theatre when the "threepenny opera" is announced as a feature in a season, and I wonder if the integration of media/live camera elements/projection can begin to draw younger audiences to shows that they would not normally attend. I feel like their is a lot of opportunity in the integration of these new, innovative elements that can help to diversify the "drama audience", which is typically composed of older white patrons.
As a huge fan of both German expressionism and Brecht this pieces is beyond captivating. what a fantastic idea to incorporate projections into this show.I think they completely succeeded with the idea of epic theater in this way. using this spectacle to draw the audience out of the fantasy world really is a smart move. also incorporating slits and cracks in the dressing rooms allowing for the show to "bare all" is quite intriguing and i believe adds to the Wiemar aesthetic.
Even though I have seen it a lot, and worked on productions using projections, I’m still on the fence about the use of projections and media in theater. It has seemed to me that a lot of times when projections are used it is because it is there. If I have any say in the overall look and style of a production, I always ask a question when someone brings up the use of media and projections in a production: How will it be used to tell the story? If the creative team can’t answer that question, media and projections shouldn’t be used. In this case, it seems like a lot of though, planning, research and creativity went into the use of media and projections in this production. It has been a while since I have thought about Threepenny Opera, but it does seem like it lends itself to a creative use of projections. I’m glad that the article focuses on the integration of projections to the story and not to the rest of the design.
I’m all for progressing theater technology; however, for this production I ask: what’s the point? Why is this production being made? I think part of my issue is the destruction of the world in the removal of the clean seams we see in a typical theatrical production, so I would be interested in reading the script and seeing what the script is about and how this production is using that to its advantage. It’s really cool that they are going very hard for bringing the audience into the world of the era with the cameras, but what does obstructing some of the audience’s view add? I would understand a crumbling back wall, but why do we need to see the dressing rooms? What is this bringing that one couldn’t do more simply. This all being said, I would still go see the production, if nothing else to try to understand what is going on, but my reaction to how it is described in this article is just: why?
I remember examining this play in Design for the Stage, and working with lighting and media to examine the telling of this story in a new way. This production seems to carry on in that same vein. It is interesting to see how - as time goes on - there are new ways to remain faithful to old values in new ways, especially in terms of this play and Brecht's adherence to alienation. A difficult question I see cropping up with more and more frequency is what aspect of a play does a modern production want to remain faithful to? Modern audiences are much harder to shock, and are largely desensitized to the spectacles that would have shocked original audiences. Productions are now in essence forced to choose between striving to recapture the effect a production had on a past audience, and producing a play more true to the actual story itself. Where does the true value of a play lie, and how should we adapt our attitudes towards plays in these ever- and rapid-changing times?
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