Naturalism and Dark Matter blog 5

The first thing that comes to my head is Chekhov’s The Boor.  In this 1 act comedy, Chekolv never shows Popova’s late husband that she has been mourning since his death seven months ago, yet his “presence” is what drives the plot because it is what causes Smirnov to request his money from Popova that her husband owed him.  Some productions have decided to include a large picture of him in Popova’s parlor to represent his presence, but others have avoided this to keep the husband’s mystery alive.  Sofer’s dark matter helps with the effectiveness of this choice because given that this is a comedy it adds a nice comedic effect when the audience is kept in the dark about who this man that Popova is claiming pure devotion to is. Through her actions we learn that she is just being overly dramatic and has little to no attachment to him.  It lets the audience create an image of her late husband in their heads.  When a character is consistently talked about but never seen it gives the audience the opportunity to create their image in their own minds.  For me, when I think of Popova’s late husband I first picture him as the most attractive and loveliest man I have ever seen, but as the show goes that dwindles into me picturing him as a lack luster dud and it’s exciting and funny how that happens through my imagination with no visual representation dictating to me what pre-conceived notions I would have about him through just seeing the set. 

  First off, I don’t think that if a piece of artwork about the holocaust is beautiful and entertaining that it anyway redeems the horror of Auschwitz.  I think it’s a tad extremist to even say that something can’t be beautiful and horrific at the same time.  Beauty and entertainment are in themselves already subjective and in the eye of the beholder.  Even if something is horrific, I can personally recognize beauty in it because I don’t think beauty is about prettiness, it’s about what I view as truth or justice.  Stepping on toes is something that will happen regardless of the situation so just because a group may take something offensively, that isn’t meant to be taken offensively but just as an expression, should not stop the creation of art and the new perspective that art could give to it’s viewers.  It’s impossible to accurately recreate the past, so even if a realistic creation was intended it would automatically be abstracted.  The Holocaust, being a series of events can’t holistically be represented, but I don’t think attempting to re-create a slice of those events through art is uncalled for.  Art reveals or should reveal the not so pretty sometimes; it should be a mirror of life or past life to ensure that past mistakes are not forgotten in attempt to not repeat them and create a sense of as much understanding as we can without actually knowing what it was like. 

Disturbance and the 21st century theatre scene Blog #4

When I was in Disney world last year I was just casually walking down mainstreet with my mom on our way to get some coffee before we started our day of adventuring, when suddenly a cast member dropped to his knees and began drawing water art.  Using a bucket of water and a tied up broom he started creating an image of the well-known and loved Donald Duck.  This of course created a large amount of curiosity for visitors who were interested to know what was going on.  A crowd started to gather around him and it caused sort of a block on the street and made it difficult to maneuver past them.  This definitely caused a disturbance, because it prevented us and others from easily walking into the mainstreet Starbucks, but we didn’t actually mind the delay because we were equally intrigued.  I think this little street performance was actually very effective, similar to almost all of the street shows Disney performs in their parks.  I think that the purpose of this performance was not to merely entertain park visitors on a fairly crowded day, but to also alleviate attraction congestion, and it did just that.  Once we eventually made it further into the park, I noticed more of these water drawings.  They were not in close proximity to the more popular attractions, but by ones that get less attention.  This subtly enforced visitors to go to these less popular attractions to keep the park and attraction flow running as smoothly and efficiently as possible.  Disneyworld is not shy about how the whole company is essentially run as a theatre and I think that these little side performances are what makes Disney world so appealing. It’s the “magic,” the unsuspecting aspect of the possibility of magical happenstance. I think that it’s important to recognize that just because there is a certain expectation of what theatre is and should be doesn’t mean that it has to be limited by that expectation.  Familiarity, I find is a drawing in mechanism.  I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we need a billion revivals to make theatre 21^st century friendly, but I think taking classical ideas and expanding on them is vital.  Creating a new space for a known piece can capture an audience’s attention and invest them in it.  I know that personally my environment has an enormous affect on my feelings, so if we possibly get rid of the traditional theatre seating arrangement and broaden our theatre spaces, then I think it could be more appealing.  I think audiences and people in general have an intrinsic desire to be something or be a part of something greater than they are.  So let them! Create an environment and a stage that includes them in it.  If I’m watching Romeo and Juliet in an actual garden and the house is literally among the rose buds and I can smell their sweetness and feel the way Romeo and Juliet are feeling as they decide to marry, that connection could occur. 

Pickering & Thompson Naturalism in the Theatre

This past summer I saw the NOLA Project’s production of Adventures in Wonderland.  It really stood out in my memory because it was absolutely hilarious.  The shows was essentially three shows in one and you would pick which of the three track you want go on and they would eventually all intermingle at points in the show.  I took the tea party track, which was stationary where as the other two were ones that were led by a character.  It was an original show sprung from a classic and I loved it, although I didn’t necessarily find the production to be “informative.”  Where as I saw Cabaret at Tulane Summer Lyric this past summer as well, and even though I didn’t find it to be holistically convincing, it is very unrealistic, it’s a musical.  I did recognize truth, particularly with the actor who played the Emcee.  I found his performance to be truthful not only because he was the only person in the show that is actually written to be the revealer of the true depravity of the situation during Nazi Germany, but also because the character this actor created was crying and his emcee makeup was running.  It was a manic-ish crying and it was fascinating to watch and captivating.  So it made me think that although I never experienced Nazi Germany, within the parameters of this show I was convinced that those tears were truth, That hot tears causing elaborate make up to run was how Nazi Germany was like.  I had a real and terrifying glimpse and it was great. 

I think there is definitely a difference between performances that offer some kind of (new or newly clarified) truth versus performances that strive for documentary “verbatim” or naturalistic reality.  Performances that offer some kind of new truths I feel are groundbreaking and organic, I think that they can only truly happen and be performed once though.  I think that the documentary style is just a reel of an event and no truth is shown at all.  I feel that a construct new perspective is shown, but I don’t think that that means its truth.  It is a newly constructed half- truth, because although the facts and words maybe true, that doesn’t mean that all context is present and context is sometimes everything. 

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Butler on Performative Acts/ Utterances

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCVGpvzcHko

In Bo Burnham’s comedy show “What,” he performs a song called “Repeat Stuff.”   The whole song itself is essentially a giant tweak on a performative act and utterance, but I want to focus particularly on the part where Bo entices his live audience to repeat “repeat stuff” with him and he suddenly stands up and begins engaging in the Nazi march salute.  This salute in it’s original context stands for an allegiance to the Nazi Regime that Hitler created during WWII.  It signifies dedication to their cause of eliminating those who they would consider undesirable and in “purifying” their land.  When Bo does this, he is alluding not only to his live audience blindly following him, but also to the individuals who feed into mainstream music culture and how they are almost hypnotized by an industry that is designed to manipulate their audience to sell more records.  Bo is suggesting with this gesture while saying repeat stuff that that like Hitler’s Nazi supporters, mainstream music listeners are supporting an internally destructive cause.  Bo is mocking/ making fun of how unaware these music listeners are and how they mindlessly give into this industry that is honestly detrimental to young woman who are immersed in a world where they are constantly being torn down from the way they look, to what they watch, to how much they eat.  Their image is the center of everything, but at the same time it is under constant scrutiny, so the music industry feeds on that. It presents a seemingly safe place to satisfy that feeling of wanting to be wanted and serves as an escape for young girls, that in reality is just a way for the industry make more money.  It’s rather disgusting and emotionally and mentally jarring.  Not to say that it is nearly as devastating as the holocaust, but still it is a negative movement that is going on and Bo is addressing it in his act in a comical way because well he is a comedian.