Blog 8

I think that twitter plays take away the reality effect. I think I should start off by saying that I don’t really think that twitter plays are theatre. They may be scripts, but they aren’t plays nor are they really closet dramas either.  With something so short and through a medium like twitter, it takes away the reality because you don’t know who the person on the other end of the tweet is. They could completely be lying to you and say they’re doing something. Someone in class used a real life example of her friend live tweeting a conversation that she heard in the quad and we have no idea if it was a real conversation or not.  Durationals on the other hand, I think, dig more into the reality effect. I think if you sit in on a piece like Quizoola or Speak Bitterness, it is clearly unmediated. They just keep going or mediate themselves. Quizoola would keep going on until someone said “Do you want to stop?” “Yes.” 

I don’t really think that twitter plays and durationals are the right here right now of theatre. Nothing like this happens in Baton Rouge. It’s probably different in New York, but the things that are popular are going to be the commercial things and that’s what keeps theatre going. Because that’s what makes money.  Maybe going into the future and looking back, we’ll notice that these types of plays had more of an impact but to me, right now, 

Blog 7

Since my life is currently being consumed with Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl, I will talk about this show. In our lab show, space is all we have. Our budget hasn’t allowed us to take on this crazy and elaborate set. The play doesn’t even really call for anything like that anyway. So we have a blank stage with some periaktoi and some branches where we can create a string room.  Being a minimal show, I think this is effective and can speak to the six axioms. It allows transactions between actors and the audience, actors and actors and actors and technical elements. Each space of the stage has it’s own meeting. We have the string room, a designated spot for stones and one side is the underworld while the other side acts as the real world with a globe connecting the two worlds. The worlds intermingle. Focus really is flexible from both the actors and audience’s perspective. 

            Environmental and site-specific theatre enhance the production in my opinion. It would be cool to do this in a more found space other than the Studio, but that’s not the point.  I think the transaction between audience and performer is the most important thing, and creating an environment that allows that is very strong.

            I don’t necessarily agree with Kantor’s view. I don’t think that theatre has been sterilized and neutralized for one thing.  Theatre grows but those words make it sound like it’s stale and boring now. Playwrights work for years to create something wonderful. Not all theatre is site-specific or experimental.  Something made up as the production goes on could turn out just as bad, if not worse, than something that was planned thoroughly.

Blog 6

I don’t necessarily think that theatre is becoming so diluted that it melts into other mediums of art. I think that theatre can incorporate all of these aspects without losing its artistic presence.  For instance, I’ve seen countless bootlegs and live on Broadway videos of some of my favorite shows.  It will never be the same though. I would much rather go see Memphis live than watch the recording on Netflix. However, I do feel as though I have to resort to watching film and bootlegs of theatre because I don’t have instant access to these shows. I would’ve killed to go see Heathers when it was off Broadway, but it closed before I had the opportunity to go to New York. Despite all of this, I do have more of a gratification of seeing a show live. I remember going to shows Theatre Baton Rouge (Back when it was BRLT) and sitting in the front row and getting pointed at by an actor or having eye contact with them while they share these emotions with me was spectacular. I felt so present in that moment and nothing, especially technology, could take away that personal moment.

A lot of violent things have happened in the Louisiana State Capitol’s senate chamber. Every year when I was little, I would go with my mom after session had ended and we would sort the bills numerically for a few hours every day for a week.  I remember her taking me around the capitol and she showed me a painting in the back hallway of Huey Long’s assassination. It terrified me because, as a 7 year old kid, that I would get shot if I went into the senate chamber.  Then there is the pencil. For those of you who don’t know, there is a pencil stuck in the ceiling of the Senate Chamber from a bombing in 1970. I’ve gone back, since, when I worked as a page and thought about all of the violence that has happened there and I imagined what happened. Who was there? What were the reactions? Would it happen again?