The New York Times: In the darkest moments of a family tragedy, when the playwright Mona Pirnot couldn’t find the strength to verbalize her feelings to her boyfriend or her therapist, she tried something a little unorthodox: She typed her thoughts into her laptop, and prompted a text-to-speech program to voice them aloud.
3 comments:
I honestly think I have seen this done before but I am not sure when or where. This topic of using the computer to communicate with people is not a new thought but I think that not knowing how to have hard conversations and using their computer to communicate is something that the newer generations will see more and more as time goes on. I can even admit that my phone is like my third hand and I do not go anywhere without it because I am so attached to it. Knowing how to communicate with others about hard conversations is a skill that many people are losing because they can simply “ghost” them online. I think that trying to communicate and still holding composure can be very difficult for a lot of people and makes them lean on technology to communicate how they are feeling.
This is so cool and such a novel way to use sound to inform a play. This is the kind of theatre I love, where people are just like "this spoke to use", and so they staged it. It's more raw and emotional in a way. I think productions like these can be quite moving especially with how we interpret computerized voices. Having Pirnot sitting with her back to the audience while a computer speaks her words is so cool to me. I honestly kind of want to see this, cause it's the kind of thing I think I would do, something that is an unconventional use of sound is always so fun. I think I'm going to look more into Hnath's work cause it sounds super cool.
I frankly only clicked on this article because it’s from the New York Times. The New York Times tends to write great articles that are informative and also tell good stories. I really had no clue what I was getting into when I clicked this article. I’m happy I did. The juxtaposition of the computer and human emotional experiences are so interesting to me. I also think this show would be super painful to watch. I really dislike listening to a text to speech, I find that it grinds on my brain. I can’t imagine watching this show where the majority of it is text to speech. I think that uncomfortable-ness works in favor of this piece. It is inherently a tragedy and I don’t think the audience is meant to be comfortable. That being said, I would never go to see this show, despite how cool I think it is.
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