DC Metro Theater Arts: Pandemic life may have shut down live theater, but DC’s Landless Theatre Company has always had a knack for making lemonade out of lemons. They found their own digital theater solution hiding in the closet: They are doing Urinetown: The Musical with sock puppets.
2 comments:
I love this concept. I have never seen Urinetown, but I imagine a comedic musical that satirizes so many topics we are painfully aware of during the pandemic done in a very muppet like style is incredibly funny and enjoyable to watch. In the zoom theatre pieces I have seen have been the most painful around integrating all of the live performers squares into one screen and have then interact with each other. The execution ends up being clunky and awkward. This concept has all of the “performers” performing in the same space and from the clip in this article, it seems much smoother than what has become the typical zoom format. Additionally, when trying to execute a piece with puppets, it can be difficult for performers that do not have experience with puppetry to suddenly become puppeteers. Of course sock puppets have a short learning curve, but having one person operate all the puppets and then piece it all together ensures that the puppet operation is at a consistent skill level. I like that this remote production gave the company a chance to use local and international voice actors, and I have no doubt that this was an entertaining performance.
Urinetown with puppets certainly seems like an interesting concept. As far as shows go, Urinetown involves enough camp and excitement that I think the idea has a good chance at being successful to begin with. This looks like an insanely entertaining production to watch, and a good solution to the pandemic without using zoom, having the actors look at the screen instead of their partners, and the general chunkiness that has been pandemic theatre. In addition, I appreciate their attempt to not make the theatre production become essentially a film, because I don't think that a lot of theatre people are interested or skilled enough in film to make it successfully, although I wish that we were. I am very intrigued by puppets in general, so I am excited to see that they are becoming more prevalent with the pandemic. I would love to watch this production, and see what it is all about!
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