Blog 5

The show that I have seen that struck me with an example of dark matter was Elephant’s Graveyard written by George Brant in 2008.  The play centers around a group of circus performers versus a group of townspeople. The circus performers loved their elephant, Mary. However, when someone rode Mary who wasn’t her trainer, she threw him off of her back and ended up killing the boy.  The play then goes as far as to explain how the elephant was executed in gruesome detail. 

Obviously, we cannot kill an elephant on stage. You can barely have an elephant on stage. Mary was the dark matter. Whenever they explained the death of Mary, the director decided to utilize red fabric to show her blood.  This paired with the details of her death lead to a really upsetting image.  This was very effective because you had no choice but to picture it. The script broke your heart because the words were so powerful and then the image that the director gave us just added to that effect. We created our own image of Mary.  And each character on stage had their version of Mary. To the townspeople, she was seen as a monster but to the ballerina, the strong man, and her trainer, she was family. 

This part of the prompt has had me thinking for days, which explains why I’m writing this so late.  I think the way to represent something so horrible is to keep it as true as possible.  There is not a single person on Earth who could understand how horrible these events were unless they were there.  Is it up to those who went through these horrors to portray them in art? Would that be too difficult? Would it be too real? Dr. Fletcher gave us an example of a man who did a documentary about living with bears and the bears ate him alive. His death was recorded and you could hear this man and his girlfriend dying. The guy who put the documentary together said that no one should ever be allowed to hear something so awful. It was at the filmmaker’s discretion at that point.   I believe Dr. Fletcher said that guy who put the documentary together gave it to his family and then it was destroyed.

Obviously there have been telling recollections of the holocaust. Books and films have given us a bit of an insight and, although entertaining, help us understand. I think it is possible to be entertained but still recognize that it’s a horrible event.  Maybe entertained isn’t the best word because when I think of entertained I think of pleased.  The word has a positive connotation to it and in this case it isn’t necessarily positive.

How do the possibilities of abstraction help us approach this question? I’m not sure. Does the Holocaust count as dark matter for us? It happened. It is a moment in history but we didn’t live through it and we surely didn’t experience it.  We have to picture it. Sure you can visit the sites of the horrific events but the events are abstract to us. The experience is abstract to us. 

Blog 4

In class today, we were talked about hate speech and protests and my first reaction was to link some of our in class examples to The Westboro Baptist Church.  As most of you know, they protest funerals of a lot of different groups, including homosexuals, soldiers, and even celebrities who just support those causes.  They really publicize their protests and make people talk which I think makes it theatre. It’s a performance that gains a nation wide audience through the media.  However, what I think is even more incredible is the response.  Through media outlets like facebook and especially tumblr, we hear about students and other people that are against what the Westboro church that make walls to keep the church away from these private events. 

A recent example of this is from this past Feburary after Michael Sam came out as an openly gay professional football player. The Westboro Church headed to Missouri once Sam came home. They tweeted “Yes! Westboro made it to @mizzou & we got just the light to shine on this dark @mikesamfootball fag mess, @espn!” (@WBCsays Feb 15, 2014).  They linked a photo, but since then, twitter has taken it down. Immediately, fans and supports created a human wall to block out the protest and keep Michael Sam safe from the hate speech that was about to take place.

I think the best way to change theatre and bring it into the 21^st century is to add technology into the mix.  We will never be able to prevent people from using their phones in the middle of the show.  One of my favorite things from the NBC show Smash, is when they used real time tweets into the fictional show Hitlist. In the show, the show was in previews on Broadway and didn’t quite click with the audience. But adding in the technology really enticed the audience.  This song, I’m Not Sorry, uses a rockstar-esque stage to really grab the attention of the audience (lights, rock music, reference to the VMA’s) and then adds the twitter bit at the end.

The twitter bit takes place at 2:35-end

Blog 3

I thought about a lot of shows for this blog post.  I tried to pick out shows that had a sense of “truth” in them and that was pretty hard.  I haven’t taken a lot of time to really think about truth in them.  So I picked one documentary-esque show that was done here at LSU and one show that is just oodles of fun.

The first show that came to mind was my favorite show that has been done here at LSU, Elephant’s Graveyard. I read the play for one of my classes but it didn’t really come to life until I saw it. It has been the only show here to make me actually cry and bring out real emotion.  I really felt for this fictional elephant that was murdered, ya know? But I think it was the emotions that I felt that made it something true.  It was a show that convinced you that people in tight knit groups really take care of each other, whether it is animals or humans.  If an outsider comes in and messes up that balance, it really throws you for a loop.

The other show that I was thinking of is How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. This is a fun show. The choreography, the lights and the singing just makes for a fun afternoon at the theatre. Nick Jonas helped with that jazzy aspect as well.  However, I wouldn’t actually follow the advice that Anderson Cooper’s voice gave J. Pierrepont Finch. It’s horrible advice. And it’s very unrealistic.  You can’t succeed without trying. That’s the truth.

Here's the first bit of advice you'd be given if you were J. Pierrepont.

*For the record, I don't support bootlegging shows but I am grateful in this instance. 

This is with Darren Criss as J. Pierrepont.

I think that there is a difference between performances that offer some kind of truth versus performances that strive for documentary or naturalistic theatre.  There will always be some sort of truth or attempt at truth when it comes to theatre or a performance. However, when I’ve looked at documentary theatre, it is super biased. In the Bodies of Evidence article that we read, Martin poses the question, “What is the basis for the selection, order and manner or presentation of materials from the archive?”  I don’t remember if Elephant’s Graveyard was based on a true story or not, but for examples sake, let’s say it was. We got the perspective of the elephant’s caretaker, the townspeople, the carnies, etc, which makes for a well-rounded bit of information. However, that’s not always the case.  With Aftermath, we sort of got a one sided bit of the story from the Iraqi people.  In documentary theatre you choose how you want the story to be told which can eliminate some of the truth from the matter.

Post 2

I’ve been trying to think about this post all weekend. I know the answer could be fairly simple but I still struggled to really grasp the idea. However, I was reading the blog post over and over again and for some reason when Dr. Fletcher pointed out gingers, it made me think of the episode in South Park when Cartman is on video talking about how gingers do in fact have souls despite what other youtubers out there have said.  See below:

Well, is that only for natural redheads? What if I decided to change that about myself? What if I decided to perform the act of dying my hair red? Would that take my soul away from me? I wasn’t always a ginger before this. Cartman identifies with being a ginger and he’s sticking up for his “people.” On the other hand, what if Cartman decided to dye his hair brown or blonde? Does his soul jump back into his body? Is this a whole “You can take the ginger out of the person but you can’t take the person out of the ginger?” type scenario?  

Cartman then makes a point to identify as Christian and that he goes to church. This obviously means that he has a soul, right? (Oh Cartman) You can be Christian and not always go to church. But because you step into a chapel or any place of worship, you identify (most of the time) with that religion. It alters the reality from when you were say, at school or work, to being in the moment of worship and God. 

I don’t know if this is exactly on the money or not, but hopefully I’m heading in the right direction with this idea of felicitous and infelicitous performance acts. If not, please let me know so I can get on the right page! 

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Blog One

In Carlson’s article, the term that stuck out to me the most (that we did not discuss in class) was the idea of restored behavior. Schechner defines it as a “quality of performance not involved with the display of skills, but rather with a certain distance between ‘self’ and behavior” (4). So I take it that when you are portraying a restored behavior, then you are not necessarily showing off but you are just doing something unlike yourself.  On the second day of class, we talked a lot about how you must be conscious that you are performing in order for it to be a performance. This separation of self and behavior kind of blurs that line a bit as I’ll talk about soon.

I work in a restaurant.  I don’t display any special talent or skills, but I do feel like I’m performing when I talk to our guests/customers.  I have to act a certain way and put on a front in order to make tips. I feel like a lot of the stuff I have to say is scripted.  I sort of think this is a restored behavior.  I’m not acting necessarily like my self but I have to behave a certain way for my audience (the customers). However, I’m not displaying skills. I work as a take-out server and all I do is bag their food, show them that we didn’t forget anything, and do all of this with a smile praying on the inside that they leave at least a couple bucks. This however, is not theatre, but it is a performance.