When trying to find out how an audience responses to a piece of theatre, whether it be experimental, traditional or anything in-between, a number of problem arise.   The main one being that there is no way of know what they all think.  You could hand out questionnaires and hope that people fill them in and hand them back, you could ask people after the show what they thought but you’ll probably only be able to ask a few and some may be in a rush to get home, you could call them in after the event and ask them what they thought but their opinions may have changed from their initial impresses.  And any form of question asking could be leading to try and get them to give a certain answer.  Then you also have to consider whether they are regular theatre goers, are they from the local arear, have they travelled just to see this show, is this a one off treat and so on.  All these can affect the audience responses to a piece and so it is virtually impossible to get an accurate reading about how the audience would have responded.  So any experiments conducted have to be done so in controlled conditions.

For instance, there is a theory that believes that actors off stage can enhance of hinder the actors on stage when conserved with the transferal of emotion from the actors to the audience.  It goes as follows: if the actors off stage are conjuring up the same emotion that the actors are trying to portray the audience seems to feel it more and the actors find it easier to convey that emotion, and if the actors are feeling the opposite emotion the actors find it very difficult to portray the emotion to the audience.  This experiment has taken place a few times and the same results have been found every time although the reasons behind this are unclear.  I personally have not experienced this although it would be very interesting to try.

It should be noted that it was often the actors who were asked whether or not the audience was more responsive.  As far as this is concerned I have had a certain about of experience with responding and reading the audience.  During performance it can be easy and very difficult for an actor to read the audience.  Sometimes you can feel the audience’s response and other time it can be very difficult to know whether they are enjoying it.  Take comedy for example: some audience will laugh freely so you know that you are getting the desired response but other times they might not laugh, they contain themselves but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they aren’t finding it amusing, just that they are not laughing at it.

 

Reason Matthew, Theatre Audiences and Perception of ‘Liveness’ in Performance, Particip@tions Vol. 1 (2004) Available at: http://www.participations.org/volume%201/issue%202/1_02_reason_article.htm

Could a virtual performance take place?  An interesting concept, and following that to its logical conclusion, perhaps, should art reflect and become digital?  But digital is just information, a grouping of ones and zeros placed in a particular order surely no art can come from such an ordered system, than need a machine to decipher its meaning.  Is it even possibly to become immersed in purely digital, is there not some human interaction needed for us to connect to it?  Or, does it become something different when a performance is only digital, does it change how we connect and immerse ourselves with the media.  We surely live in the digital age and all know that we our surrounded, bombarded by media every day; it is inexpiable, so it is only naturally that art, performance, should incorporate it.

Firstly let’s look at the example of Janet Cardiff’s 40 Part Motet: a performance in which a choir of 40 people sing ‘Spem in Alium’.  The sings are, in this case, replaced by forty six feet high speakers, each on the voice of a single person arranged around the room in a curricular formation and all playing this song in harmony.  Here we have an example of post-human performance with multimedia.  The voices where of course human to begin with, and have been recorded in very high definition and is now broadcast through these speakers.  The way in which the audience is able to interact with this media becomes very different from that of seeing the performers live.  You could stand in the middle and let it wash over you as if you were there at the original recording, or you could go up very close to one of the speaker and it would be as if that person is singing in front of you.  Clearly this can emeries the audience in a number of ways and in a very different way to the ‘normal’ performance method.

Another example if Blast Theory’s Can You See Me Now?: in this a digital version of a city is created exactly as it exists in reality.  A user in then able to login to the game via a computer and walk around the city.  Within the physical city there are people with GPS technology, a feed to the game so they can see where the digital people are and cameras, their aim is to find the digital you walking round the city and in effect catch you.  This works on a number of levels, there is the physical you siting at the computer, the digital you that you are controlling and the physical people running round the city.  This is according to Peggy Phelan, a performance that disassociates a person from their material body, blurring the lines between present and absent.  A wonderful example of Post-Human performance.

It is important to see the difference between the real you and the online version of you.  Whether intentional or not there will be difference between how you act online and how you would react if that person was standing in front of you.  We also performed a small piece of post-human performance on Twitter #lincolnnoir.  We went around the city producing a sinister account of what we found.  An interesting example of how easy post-human performance is to do, although this was nothing compared to the scale that others have done it.  Post-human performance clearly has a place as we all use technology to help us within our lives and it is this type of performance that allows us to see where technology may take us and make us question how and why we use it.

 

Rosemary, Klich and Scheer, Edward: Multimedia Performance, CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne (2012)

Birringer, Johannes: Performing Arts Journal, Vol 9, The American Theatre Condition, Performing Arts Journal Inc. (1985)

Let us start with a definition, from the dictionary:

‘The state, condition, or period subsequent to that which is modern; spec. in architecture, the arts, literature, politics, etc., any of various styles, concepts, or points of view involving a conscious departure from modernism, esp. when characterized by a rejection of ideology and theory in favour of a plurality of values and techniques. Also in extended use in general contexts, freq. used ironically.’

So what that is saying in essence is that post-modernism is not like modernism and departs from its values and ideology in place for techniques and a completely different set of values.  In order for this to make any sense a brief description of modernism would then seem necessary.  Modernism came about post World War One and was trying to find a new beginning for humanity, to revolt against the effects of the Industrial Revolution and its scrabble for power and wealth and find common ground for all of humanity.  To attempt to find things that everyone has in common and, build things for practical use, organised and functional, to push humanity forward and leave the past mistakes behind.  If you were to consider post-modernism as the polar opposite you would be far off, in fact as far as architecture was concerned many post-modern designs were, ‘not designed to be functional, nor even intended to be built.’

What does post-modernism do, ‘especially when it’s non-dramatic, non-narrative, non-linear, and “abstract” performances behave as if there were no boundaries.’  Post-modernism explores the idea that, not only are we all different, that we can’t be sure what we perceive or to put it another way, that we can only view things through concepts.  It’s a fairly complicated idea to understand so let’s take a flag, for this instant the British flag.  Each section and colour holds a meaning.  We know this but if we, for the moment, forget what a flag is, forget the concept of flags, it becomes a meaningless mixture of coloured lines.  So no matter what we are looking at it is always through these concepts of what things are.  Even language is a concept and the meaning behind words.  Post-modernism tries to explore the idea of not having concepts and the uncertainty that causes.

Let’s take Robert Wilson’s ‘Death Destruction and Detroit’ as an example: ‘his reception depends on audience expectations about the theatre as an institution, not about the work itself.’  So the work is less important in this sense than what the audience is expecting and what sort of establishment it is being performed in.  The idea that a performance can be interrupted in one way in one country and then if performed else where a complete different meaning emerges seems to be a theme within post-modern performances.  This probably occurs due to them being abstract, the sound or music doesn’t necessarily match what is happening on stage and so on, leaving them very open to interpretation.  Whether this is good or bad, I’m unsure.  But it is certainly an interesting concept and something that I may have to look further into.

 

Sources uses:

Postmodern Performance and Technology, Johannes Birringer (Performing Arts Journal, 1985)

Robert Wilson: Is Postmodern Performance Possible?, Katherine Arens (Theatre Journal, 1991)

Oxford English Dictionary, 2014 (http://www.oed.com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/)

What is Dramaturgy?  That is indeed the question.  Its meaning seems to have changed a lot over time and depending on who you talk to.  The Dictionary defines it thusly: ‘1. Dramatic composition; the dramatic art. 2. Dramatic or theatrical acting.’  And what a description that is, full nouns of and adjectives, signifying nothing.  It seems to be a general consensus that Dramaturgy is a difficult word to define: ‘few terms in contemporary theatre practice have consistently occasioned more perplexity’.  One of the main problems with trying to define it is that it is such a broad term that can refer to many elements of Drama and performance.  Dramaturgy can refer to from the writing to the final performance.  The collaboration on writing a script, staging the performance, making sure the costumes and settings are accurate, music, lighting, anything you can think of the Dramaturgy can help with, or is it interfere?

There is a big conspiracy that the Dramaturge is a force of disruption, taken well written plays and changing then so that all the fun is removed, making it a simple message that is repeated over and over with no heart, just meaning; at least this is how some people view them within the industry.  This of course is not there job or their intent.  The role would appear to be more of realist or interrupter: ‘The goal of dramaturgy is to resolve the antipathy between the intellectual and the practical in the theatre, fusing the two into an organic whole’ (Leon Katz).  So there job is to help the director, writer, whoever it maybe to realise there image of the play.  Despite it being such a difficult term to summarise the role of a dramaturgy is an important one to help the collaboration between director, actors and writers and trying to find compromises between their egos.

 

My experiences with Dramaturgy:

I often collaborate with people on scripts with is probably where most of my contact with Dramaturgy comes into play.  The other times would be when I’ve worked with a group on a devised piece, both working on lines and the flow of the performance and also on stage direction.

 

Sources uses:

Dramaturgy and Agendas of Charge: Tinderbox and the Joint Sectoral Dramaturgy, Mary Luckhurst (Routledge, 2010)

Dramaturgy in American Theatre, Susan Jonas, Geoff Proehl and Michael Lupu (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1997)

Oxford English Dictionary, 2014 (http://www.oed.com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/)