Thursday, October 07, 2021
Pittsburgh Public Theater streams Wendy MacLeod’s Slow Food, a hangry experience.
onStage Pittsburgh: Imagine you and your spouse have just taken a long flight to Palm Springs for an anniversary getaway. The kids are away at college, a cool car has been rented, and a room with a hot tub has been secured at a lovely hotel.
And then reality and the associated stress sets in. The flight is late getting into Palm Springs, the cool rental car isn’t available, just a work van, and the hot tub in the room is out of order.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I'm already a constantly hungry person. Therefore, this show would probably ruin and wreck me. The idea of food that will never come feels like Waiting For Godot, but instead, Waiting for To-Go. The anticipation would probably kill the audience members and there is no greater cringe than making weird talk before a meal arrives. All dates are cringe. But listening to them talk about their life and marriage before this moment will probably be the most connecting part of the world. As someone who's been a waiter who has to make sure people are happy on their dates, having an insufferable waiter during dinner sounds like incredible theatre. Maybe it's a successful dinner and they reconnect over bad Greek food, or maybe they have a good meal and they end up hating and resenting each other for the rest of their life. Either way, I kinda want to go watch the show now.
At first glance I thought this was a story about a cooking show being filmed in Pittsburgh that never got their food. The more I read the more I thought it was an outrageous idea for a production to have the two main characters sitting at a table for most of the show. However, I realized how much talent and dedication it would take for the actors to sit in the same space for well over an hour and only relying on their facial expressions and hand movements to portray the emotions of the story. Truly an innovative idea by the director and production team. Having the waiter lurking around the restaurant, in theory, really builds the eerie feeling of the restaurant and of the story as a whole. I really want to watch Slow Food now just to see the ways they keep the audience engaged in a presumably static environment.
Slow Food is the perfect choice for Pittsburgh Public Theater’s first streamed production. A play in which the 2 main characters are sitting for the entirety of the production is a challenging piece to do in an engaging way, especially when it is a virtual show where there is no fellow audience to feed off of. The added design element of cinematography is a really clever way to make this show more dynamic. I also love that this production was filmed at a restaurant instead of a theater. It may have been possible to put on an in-person performance in a restaurant, but definitely not as feasible. In fact, I doubt the thought of another venue would have even come up if this show was not streamed. For most people, myself included, digital theater isn’t the ideal scenario to create or consume within, but it’s exciting that this new medium has allowed for theatrical work to be interpreted in more creative ways.
27. This is such an innovative use of virtual theatre. Not many theatres in my hometown attempted virtual programming. Many went for the outdoor production route and are now producing fully in person productions. I really appreciate the Pittsburgh Public Theatre for making theatre accessible for audience members who cannot attend in person performances for safety and health issues. I love that the Public is using this as an opportunity to make something fresh. The choice to film in an actual restaurant, subsequently, making the production more cinematic is ingenious to me. It gives audiences something new to engage with. The producers recognize their inability to create an exact replicate for live theatre, but unlike some productions they do not work against it. They use this cameras and video to their advantage. It is important that we recognize as an industry, that attending in-person performances is simply not accessible to many at this point. Although, it may not be ideal to you, it is important to continue creating with all audience member in mind. This includes the continuation of virtual programming.
Post a Comment