Thursday, February 20, 2020
A defense of marathon theater: It can feel like a restorative vacation
Datebook: On Thursday, Feb. 13, I wore loose clothes and packed a sandwich, grapes, oranges, nuts, dried fruit and chocolate chip cookies. I brought reading and work to do during down time. I was preparing for an all-day excursion — not a physical one, but an artistic one. I was about to see marathon theater.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I did not know marathon theater was its own category. The name is pretty self-explanatory though. While reading the beginning, the first work I thought of that would fall under this category would be Angels of America, both parts combined. I think marathon theater provides great artistic opportunities for artists, whether that’s designers, directors, or actors. How do you create a theater experience that is engaging for such a long time? How does this duration change the factors which designers have to consider when designing? I’d imagine these performances would be physically demanding too for actors and the crew. I’m curious about how it differs from a regular two hour show. Like the author of the article writes, marathon theater doesn’t need to rush through a story, that it can slow down to the actual pace of life. I feel like it provides so much opportunity to enhance characterization and the story.
As much as I love theatre, I do not think I would ever subject myself to ‘marathon theatre,’ like, ever. Consuming hours upon hours of live entertainment sounds absolutely exhausting, not to mention you would not even have sufficient time to absorb the content for what it was meant to convey. I don’t even think I would be able to do Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in one day. My brain needs to process and rest after staring at something in the dark for hours upon end! And with anything more intellectually metaphorical or eloquent than Harry Potter, I think I might fall asleep after a few hours. The author said something about feeling “at home” over the course of the day because of the massive consumption of theatre. I already feel “at home” here. I spend most of my day here. I think there might be a separation for some theatre people who spend all their time in these spaces. We do not want to spend more time here than we already do, so we appreciate what time we already have and do not prolong it more than necessary.
While I fare better with plays than movies, most that know me know that I can't sit still long enough to watch a movie so the idea of marathon plays scare me. I've always found the world of a play far more engaging than that of a film so my attention span is typically longer but 6+ hours I'm not so sure about. No matter how engaging a plotline at some point I'll need to move, speak, and disengage from the world of the play. Especially with something that's potentially emotionally charged, I'm not sure I'd be able to handle becoming invested in a show like that for such a long time. Knowing me it'd be almost difficult to part with this newfound environment. The author touched on the idea of almost feeling at home in not just the physical space but the world of play (sorry for saying that phrase so much) and there are many plays I wouldn't want to start associating with home. Maybe one day I'll watch a marathon play, but that's definitely a no for quite awhile.
The comments on this article surprised me because, going into this article, I expected to be learning about theater festivals, not one eight hour piece. I definitely don’t think I would be a fan. In fact, when my partner and I were looking into shows to see during our trip to New York, he expressed interest in The Inheritance, but we chose not to go for it for many reasons. 1. Longer shows take away time to see everything you want to see. This is more of an issue when planning a short trip. 2. Two part shows cost twice as much, which is the biggest deterrent for me by far. 3. I simply do not understand why any show worth seeing would need that much time to tell a story. Overall, I am the type of person to try most things once and will likely see a marathon show at some point in my life, but I imagine a ten hour day filled with 10 or so shows will always appeal to me more than an eight hour day where I only see one show.
Post a Comment