Thursday, January 29, 2026
A Play Without Live Actors: Is ‘An Ark’ Theatre’s Afterlife?
AMERICAN THEATRE: As An Ark opens, actor Golda Rosheuvel enters stage right and sits down in one of four chairs. She looks directly at you, maintaining deep, expectant eye contact. She smiles at you and nods understandingly. Do you smile back? I did. Almost involuntarily. A human reflex: subconscious mirroring.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
It is an interesting piece to learn about. I had imagined future theaters implementing VR technology, and the Ark captures part of my vision. However, the playwright is still making his point of delivering this kind of art both individually and collectively, which I believe is hard for a virtual experience. The collective and immersive point seems controversial when we learn the nature of this new kind of art with virtual figures performing in front of the audience. The fact that nothing can be modified after previews for this show, since the whole piece is recorded motions, is restricting this form of art from being an immersive experience for the audience. It seems like the audience is only watching a projected video of a seemingly real figure performing in their sight. This new form of art kind of buries the line between video/film/media and theater. I wouldn’t consider it as theater, since the actor’s energy level couldn’t be modified after certain responses from the audience. That onstage effect is not happening in the Ark. I will be excited to hear more from these new intersecting experiments between art and tech.
Post a Comment