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.