HowlRound Theatre Commons: Since the invention of the hot stage light, innovation in the performing arts has increased audience expectations. The theatre, which was once a gathering place to simply hear new stories and perspectives, has increasingly become a space for the privileged critique of how these stories are told and how much innovative spectacle is used to thrill its high-paying listeners. Insurmountable cast sizes, rotating seats, giant puppets, flying characters, and more have all added to the exciting visual glamour of theatre, but have ironically diluted the core meaning of storytelling and instead built consumer-first audiences desperate for glittering effects.
2 comments:
I am so glad that there is an article about this topic! I have been waiting for something like this to comment on. I completely agree that theater has become more about the spectacle rather than the story. I mean I am a sucker for a cool stage effect or extravagant piece of scenery but sometimes I feel like the story of a lot of shows is engulfed but the technical spectacle that is broadway today. You have to be a great designer to understand when silence and “emptiness” is better than an effect. I mean in lighting particularly you really need to know how to balance the lighting you are using along with an absence of it!!! It is crucial to know when an effect is needed and when the absence of one is needed. To draw back to CMU, I say the Dance Floor last weekend and I thought had some amazing work in it but sometimes I felt that the spectacle was over-utilized and overshadowed the complex and meaningful story being told by the actors. I think sometimes were are taught more about how to overdo something than to find the fine line between too much and too little (there is a real art to that). I would love to see more articles on things like minimalism (not in the sense of underutilizing) of technical elements in storytelling.
The theatre has evolved a lot since its original form. We’re going for spectacle, or simply for the name of a famous actor. No longer do people just go to hear the story - often tickets are way too expensive to go see something on a limb. However, Isaac Gomez’s work the way she spoke opening et New York’s Minetta Lane Theatre and it suggested otherwise. Stripped of what society has started to deem necessary, this production focuses on the raw storytelling. The author of this article gives a very thoughtful and insightful review of this play and I definitely will try and go see it if it’s still playing in NYC over Thanksgiving. The play seems to be a mixture of interviews and mythologia and the mass femicide that was apart of a certain part of Mexico for many years. It’s a solo show - which in my opinion are very hit or miss - but this sounds like a real hit.
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