New York Theater: I had a mixed reaction to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of “Dream,” a 30-minute online experiment inspired by the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which is being presented live online for free through Saturday. What I saw on my laptop screen was kind of…painterly, which sometimes meant lovely, but often faint and murky. But what the RSC is doing is thrilling — it’s The Future of Storytelling; as it certainly was a few years ago on Staten Island.
2 comments:
While this might not have originally been something I immediately thought of attending, I think this is an incredible way of creating theatre in the pandemic. I cannot imagine how long it took to develop all of the graphics for this production, but I am so appreciative that it provides something different than the majority of virtual theatre. I do wonder what the balance of virtual theatre and live theatre will be when we can return to an in person modality. I was especially struck by the spider web like still from the production. A banquet of light with “The Tempest” seems quite impressive and would have been amazing to experience. I do find it especially interesting that “Dream” was originally going to be presented somewhat similarly pandemic aside but the in person component needed to be removed. I am excited for the future of storytelling, but I do hope to hold onto the past as well.
I was very intrigued while reading this, mostly because I have been obsessed with virtual reality and finding new ways to produce theatre. I think this show looks really cool and well done, which is impressive for an experiment being done by a company that doesn't usually work with these technologies. This seems like showing a movie set filming, with all the motion sensing suits, and turning it into a play which is very cool.
Film has made some amazing technological break throughs in recent years, and I've been waiting for these to carry over into live production. Who knew that this pandemic would be the perfect catalyst for exploring virtual forms of theatre. It is interesting however, that this production was in the works before the pandemic hit. It was supposed to be a live audience experiencing a virtual world. I wonder how it would be different from this production, or if they pretty much achieved their original goals.
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