KQED: In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jess Bliss got an idea.
Bliss, founder of The Roots and Wings Project theatre company, wanted to stage a play for an audience in an outside venue while the actors used a parked car as a stage. And a vintage convertible car, at that.
Fast-forward a few years, and that play, The Joy Ride, is about to roll into the Bay Area on Sunday, Oct. 20, at 7th West in Oakland.
5 comments:
This play is a super cool concept that I can honestly say I’ve never seen before. It’s so rare that we see art that is so unique and original so it’s cool to see that this show is really breaking down the barriers of what theater can be. The use of the car as the stage redefines not just what a scenic design is but also what can make up a stage or a playing space entirely. The car not only moves along the story but serves as a limiting factor to how the actors can be staged. It forces the artists to think about their storytelling in a new way, where blocking cannot be as focused on movement through the space and instead has to focus on smaller motions in the seats of the car. I wish I was able to see this show and also hope that in the future, I will get to see or work on shows that break our preconceived notions of theater as much as this one does.
This is a really cool concept for a play. Going on a road trip is an event that can bring out a lot of stories and new dynamics and relationships between people. This setting itself leaves a lot of room for the playwright and gives them freedom to take the plot in many different directions. I would be curious to see how the story plays out and what conflict occurs here.
On the other hand, being stuck in a car physically limits the director and the actors in a way that is very unusual for them. The inability to stand and move creates new challenges and forces the actors to be much more expressive through face and voice.
I also think it's really cool that after the playwright reached out for permission to use one song, the artist ended up writing the whole soundtrack for the show. A sound designer can do a lot and work to bring together many pieces, but having music specifically written for a piece will always affect it in a different and often stronger, way.
This sounds very interesting to me! I love that creatives continue to try to push the boundaries, however, I can not confidently say that I support this as a piece of theatre. With the actors being confined to sitting down, all on the same level, it really pushes it into the realm of character, acting choices, and dialogue. While these are important aspects of theatre performances, they are really only a part– and thus I wonder if the play would not be better done as a short feature film. For me, there is some spectacle involved in theatre, it is what makes it interesting and gives it life, transporting the audience to a new world in a different time and place. While I bet the script is fantastic and the production good, I am still skeptical about theatre being approached in this way. On the other hand, theatre is designed for artists to shake it up and disrupt the status quo, so my mind is still open! Good luck to all involved and happy opening!
This is a fascinating concept for a play and it seems really ingenuitive. The lack of movement really forces the actors and director to get much more creative in how to keep things interesting when everyone is just sitting down in a confined space. There isn’t much room to move and the space is shared with a person in every seat so even then there's too many people to move between car seats as well. I really like how the sound designer ended up just joining along with the show because of one song they wanted to use. It was quite the coincidence that the themes of the show matched up so well with the messages of his music and having an original track for the play had to help boost the storyline rather than just patchworking different songs together for the track. I’d love to see this show sometime, it’d be interesting to see how they continue to capture the audience’s attention without any major movement of the characters.
I think this play is a beautiful story with an amazing message that is overlooked rather often. It’s good to realize that every person is different, each with unique stories of their own, and what better way to showcase that than in an enclosed vehicle. I can see how this would definitely be a challenge for the director and actors, now needing to portray certain emotions and the story with very limited blocking and movement. I would love to see this vehicle be on a turntable stage, turning in different directions to highlight who is speaking or what characters we’re trying to focus on. I hope this show reaches massive success and that I can see it one day.
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