Theater Preview | Chicago Reader: Before the pandemic, seeing a play often meant sitting in the dark and fading away amongst the crowd of other audience members, but with Court Theatre's Chicagoland premiere of Theatre for One: Here We Are, "the audience is front and center," according to Miranda González, director of Pandemic Fight and Thank You For Coming. Take Care.
2 comments:
The idea of being the only person in an audience makes me so anxious and uncomfortable. I can't imagine watching a comedy play and being the only person laughing or the play having a joke and being the only person watching and not laughing. I would be so uncomfortable as the audience member and so self conscious about how I'm reacting or what my facial expressions look like. Some audience members (like me) struggle keeping a straight face or laugh whenever they are uncomfortable, making the actor uncomfortable as well. I also can't imagine how awkward it would be to have just one person performing for you and one person in the audience as that feels like a such a weird power dynamic that I would just not like to partake in. I think I would be more comfortable over zoom than I would in person but I'm still sure I would be very uncomfortable. I see how this would create a bond between the theatre patron and the actor however I don't think I could enjoy it or even think about watching it. I think the idea is cool just not for me.
From the very beginning of this article, I could tell that I would absolutely hate to be an audience member for this show. Don’t get me wrong, the concept for the microplays sound really interesting and the topics they discuss seem necessary for people to hear in Chicago. But there is something about sitting in front of an actor all by yourself on zoom and having to interact that just seems awful. It’s too much pressure for a person like me. I like to sit back, relax and watch shows. I really appreciate when you are brought into the show but not to that extent. Maybe the show does say something about being vulnerable and it probably can be very impactful to the audience, but no thank you. I also dread the idea of the waiting room group chat. I already hate group chats on their own but add in strangers and a facilitator to help make small talk makes it my worst nightmare.
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