Thursday, January 19, 2017
Forced Entertainment: “Tomorrow’s Parties” and “Real Magic” (Warhol Performance Series at the New Hazlett Theatre)
The Pittsburgh Tatler: Two performance works this week by the British company Forced Entertainment opened the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh’s exceedingly timely series, “Strange Times: Earth in the Age of the Human.” Forced Entertainment is a company known for work that deliberately breaks with many of the conventions of theatre, such as the expectation for entertainment, or for character development, or for narrative pleasure and closure in a theatrical performance.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
These two Forced Entertainment shows sound incredibly fascinating. I have seen some performance art myself, but never this type of experimental theatre. As I read this article, I was wondering what type of responses I would have to the shows, if I would enjoy them, if I could critique them, and so on. But I realize now that my understanding or entertainment is trivial to this type of work, which contains layers of political and social messages and artistic experimentations without notions of success. Like contemporary visual art, the meaning or purpose could be nonexistent while influenced on modern issues, and it's not the artist's job to walk us through it. I'm so curious as to what the rehearsal and design processes are for these shows as well. The way Wendy has written about the shows makes them seem more on the improvisational side, but I'd love to see for myself.
I think the idea of realness is absurdity is interesting. Despite both of the pieces breaking theatrical conventions and not meeting typical expectations, it feel truthful and about being in the moment. In the review of Tomorrow's Parties, I thought the idea of a dystopian future that has arrived is fascinating; the comment about how in a dystopian future people will only encounter animals in zoos, but pointing out how that is true now is a poignant statement the will stick with me. The idea that we have already begun to live is a dystopia is frightening to think about, but I think it's an idea that we need to consider. As we go into the future, we need to start thinking about how to prevent things that would normally sound outrageous to us, but we all too often just accept. Allowing ourselves to continue on with our lives and not checking to see if we agree with the idea is a dangerous thing. It leads directly into the idea of our survival, another theme mentioned in the review. I hope I get to see both of these plays, especially Tomorrow’s Parties.
I had read about forced entertainment last semester and they sound like an intriguing theater company. The two show they are doing "Tomorrow's Party" and "Real Magic" both look interesting to me even though the style of theater being discussed in the article is not the typical show I would enjoy watching. Of the two " Tomorrow's Party" interest me more, because the very basic set I feel plays very well into a play that when being described seems to end up being a pissing contest of whose future is better. Also the fact that as described in the article it seems to be a mixture of both very serious and very comical tones throughout the multiple futures. I would be interested in seeing if as the article suggests the simple preformance seems both alien and natural while putting they way That we are treating each other and the world now is terrible nut the impact it could have the future could be worse. A show probably out of my normal wheel house but one that I would be highly interested in seeing anyway.
Post a Comment