Uncanny

            I thought of the scene from Chicago where Billy Flynn and Roxie Hart are meeting with all of the reporters. “We Both Reached for the Gun” is a song where Flynn is feeding Roxie all of the things she needs to say to get the media on her side. When a couple of things she says are doing the opposite of that, Flynn takes over completely and there is a vast change in the scenery. Suddenly they are in a tiny little theatre and all of the reporters are puppets on strings and Roxie has turned into a ventriloquist dummy. Their makeup makes them look somewhat less than human. They also move in a very puppet-like manner which adds to the uncanniness of their appearance. This was certainly intentional. They are human enough that you still believe that they are people and that they are still their characters. But they are unhuman enough that you get the idea that they aren’t fully present in the moment. They don’t seem fully alive, if you will. Since they aren’t completely there, it is a bit of a jolt. It’s not necessarily creepy, but it is a little uncomfortable.  You get the sense that Billy Flynn is controlling all of their speech, thought, and movements.  He is the puppet master and they are the marionettes. Even though it’s obvious that they are still the actors that are portraying them, they do a very good job of appearing somewhat less than living.

            In this instance of the uncanny, humans are used to portray the lack of liveness. Surprisingly, this is very effective. In fact, in this case, I think that using humans with makeup, strings, and a specific type of movement is more effective than using puppets that just look like the actors. There is a certain amount of creepiness to ventriloquist dummies because they are so close to humans and I think that the point of the scene would have been lost if the audience was creeped out by the puppets. Instead, you’re reminded of the creepiness of dummies without actually being presented with something creepy. It gives you a certain impression of Billy Flynn that’s partially positive and partially negative. Here’s a clip of the scene from the movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9dFKRZ8EbU

Empathy

I believe that the first step to initiating change is to get the audiences back on our side.  I see a large distinction between people who go to the theatre to see something that is moving and makes them think and people who go to the theatre to be entertained. Sadly, the second group is a much bigger group of people. They tend to see the less entertaining, more thought provoking theatre as being strange and inaccessible. Theatre needs to find a way to reach the vast majority of people who are quite closed off to the type of theatre that wants to do something. I think that we need to find a way to make these performances more accessible to the people whose minds we want to change. If it makes them uncomfortable to the point that they aren’t interested in even going to the theatre, then we have lost them and also lost the battle. I do think that it’s important to make bold choices, let the audience feel uncomfortable, and even shock people in order to make a statement that could evoke change.  However, we must be careful not to exclude people. Currently, I see that the types of shows that are important in changing society are shows that only certain people want to see. And it seems that those certain people are the ones who are already thinking towards different types of change.

The second question is a difficult one. Of course there is a point where theatre is not as effective as other things with these huge issues. That being said, I do not think that it is ever not ever one of the answers. I strongly believe that different people are given different gifts and strengths and we are to use those to help other people and bring about change if we must. Therefore, that is the one way that some people have to begin to change the world. And I believe that it can be incredibly effective if it’s done in a way that can truly reach people.

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Protest

If I had to do a protest, I think that it would most likely have to do with abortion.  I’m pro-life and it’s one of the few social issues that I feel pretty educated about and have some strong opinions about.  I know that it’s a very touchy subject, so I would want to be extremely careful about how to handle it because I know that I would definitely have some disagreement.  Lauren talked about how some pro-life protesters handled the situation very poorly once.  So I would take some of what she said about that experience and try to approach it very differently.  I know that I would want an incredibly large group involved.  My desire would be for it to be very peaceful.  While my intention would be to discourage the women thinking of getting an abortion, I would want to do it in a way that caused them to feel supported rather than condemned.  We would gather outside an abortion clinic and attempt to have conversations with the women who are considering abortion.  We would not try to stop them or block their path physically.  We would just want to share the facts and the truth with them and explain to them the other options.  We would want them to know that they do have a choice that they get to make.  And to help them make the best and wisest choice that doesn’t include ending a life.

We would decide before the protest a certain time that it would begin and end.  Perhaps it would even take place once a week or twice a month or something like that.  I wouldn’t want to cause a big fuss or disturbance, but just open people’s eyes to the options that exist.

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Time!

I was absolutely intrigued by the comparison of the everyday use of Twitter to theatre.  It was very interesting to imagine how much of a performance it is to use Twitter.  The single tweet plays seemed less like theatre to me and applied less to this idea of real time.  However the really long plays and the Twitter plays that took place over weeks definitely brought some sense of reality that a “normal” play wouldn’t quite be able to capture.  I found that especially the Twitter plays where different characters were tweeting different thing almost as if they were using Twitter were an excellent illusion of reality.  It would be very easy for these characters to turn into some of the “friends” that a person follows on Twitter.  It works well because Twitter is already set up as a form of performers and audience (even though those lines are a bit blurred and the audience and performers are constantly trading places).

I’m not sure how well it could work to take this idea of the Twitter plays to the next step, but I imagine a live performance of Twitter.  What I mean is using Twitter as a script.  I feel like it would actually end up turning into one of the durational plays though.  In order to create the reality of Twitter, characters’ conversations must take place over a drawn out period of time.  There also must be many different characters that sometimes interact with one another and sometimes do not.  I think that the inclusion of several random celebrities who don’t really interact with anyone else very much would be fun.  Then it would be performed over several hours to mimic somebody reading through a Twitter feed.  People would be welcome to come and go as they please, similar to the longer plays.  Perhaps there could be some audience interaction as well such as posting tweets that would appear in the play.

Environmental Theatre

Alright, so I love musicals and any time I get to put on my director hat and choose a production that I'd love to see come to life, it will most assuredly be a musical.  For this one, I chose the musical Godspell.  I would want it to take place in a busy outdoor environment such as the quad or a popular park.  The characters would be dressed as ordinary people (including the part of Jesus) and would interact with audience members as if they were audience members themselves.  All of the music would be sung acapella.  Obviously, this production would take place in a found space.  There would be no set brought in and props would be minimal.  Focus would be multi-focus most of the time.  And as for the text, it wouldn't be the entire show that we'd be doing.  Only the parts that would be relevant to Jesus interacting with his disciples (which would be the actors as well as the audience.)
The reason I chose this show and this sort of environment is because I would like to mimic what it was like when Jesus was actually on earth interacting with his followers.  When he would speak, a crowd would gradually form around Him and His disciples.  My hopes would be that a similar thing would happen with this production.  I think it would greatly enhance the show to have it set in a modern day version of history.
As for Kantor's quote, I would have to say that I disagree.  I believe that when we are expecting things to happen, they are always much more likely to happen.  If I attend class expecting it to be boring, it almost always is.  If I attend a movie expecting to hate it, I usually will.  If I go to church expecting to encounter God, I usually find myself more likely to than when I don't expect anything.  I believe the same is true with theatre.  Most of the time, when I attend a theatrical production that I expect to be good, I am impressed.  On the other hand, if I expect the opposite, I'm usually not surprised.  I believe that expectations have quite a lot to do with the results.

Theatre and Technology

I believe that technology has reached a dangerous point with theatre.  It has certainly reached a point where it is significantly affecting it.  This happens in a multitude of ways.  The first that comes to mind is the use of projections and videos as part of the set design.  There is a good bit of excitement over this new innovation in the design world of theatre, but for the most part I’m not on board with it.  Every time that I’ve seen projections or videos used, I found it to be mostly distracting from the show.  It took me out of the space that I was in, away from the performers, and into a world of media.  One of my favorite shows that I’ve gotten to see is Newsies.  In this show, they used projections a number of times.  One of the times, it was used for Jack Kelly to write the word “STRIKE” across a large chalkboard.  He pantomimed writing as the words appeared on the screen.  My question is, why couldn’t they use a real chalkboard with real chalk?  I believe it would have been much more effective than it was.  I found myself pulled between two worlds: one that was wrapped up in the story and another that was very aware of a screen pretending to be a chalkboard.  This is only one example out of many, but I really feel that it detracts from the quality of the performance.  I realize that theatre is trying to keep up with what is happening in the world, and—while this is important—I think that it is losing some of its integrity.  I don’t know what the answer is to this issue, but, with the growth of the film industry, social media, and other types of technology, theatre seems less accessible to people.  Of course, it isn’t any less accessible than it was before, but there are options that are much easier to gain access to.  If theatre molds itself into these more accessible forms of art, then what is the point of going to see a theatrical performance?  Theatre must keep the things that make it unique.  Things happening right there in front of the audience is what makes theatre, well, theatre. 

When I think of when media has presented something to me that I didn’t experience first person, I (along with most of America, probably) think of 9/11.  I was quite young when it happened and I had never been to New York City, so I really didn’t have any personal connection to the event.  It was mostly because I didn’t completely understand what was happening.  Several years later, in high school, I visited NYC for the first time.  We visited ground zero and, even though I understood the seriousness of it, it still seemed so distant and removed from me.  However, several years after that, my sophomore year of college, I lived in NYC for a year.  While I was there I made friends with people who had lived there for their entire lives.  One day, my friend Cindy happened to mention something about 9/11.  As we were walking down the streets of Manhattan, she told me her story.  Suddenly, the event wasn’t this far away thing that had happened to a bunch of strangers.  I felt the weight of it as this real life human person spoke her story to me.  Now, this wasn’t a performance, but it was a shared moment between humans with no other distracting influences.  Just a girl telling her story.  And that was powerful.

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Reality vs. Enjoyment

Well, the vast majority of the shows that I have seen performed have been musicals.  Also, my favorite shows that I’ve seen performed were musicals.  On that same note, my favorite shows that I have performed in are musicals.  If there is anything more opposite to realism and documentary theatre, I think it would be musicals.  There is nothing about them that tries to convince people that what is happening is real life.  Even musicals that serve as a biography for a real person’s life still include elements that make it quite unrealistic.  People just don’t break out in song or a fully choreographed dance number in real life.  And everyone knows that.  My absolute favorite show that I’ve ever been in was Oklahoma!  I played Ado Annie and enjoyed my role as well as watching the others in their roles.  But that’s all it was.  It was just enjoyable and entertaining and fun.  

On the other hand, I think about Stick Fly that I saw last year.  That show seemed much more like peeking through the window of a real family’s home.  It also was much more thought provoking.  After leaving the show, I was challenged to think about some things.  It presented some unfair and unhappy situations that really happen in our world.  While Oklahoma! is funny and entertaining, I don’t think that it ever once made me think about anything past that moment.  I didn’t think about any of the issues in the world or anything like that.  But Stick Fly had me thinking about class and race and all sorts of things.  Neither of those shows are documentary or verbatim theatre, but I don’t believe I’ve had the opportunity to watch any documentary theatre yet.  I would definitely love to.  The clips that I’ve seen of it online are very captivating.  I believe that in spite of biases and stories just being spun in a different way, they do capture reality in a very effective way.  It’s very different from musicals or even shows like Stick Fly that have very real elements to them.  Obviously, there is an extremely different intent with docudrama than there is with a musical.  And even though documentary theatre only gives us a new story from a different perspective, whether it’s the people being or portrayed or the playwright, I do think it gives us somebody’s very real story.

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Infelicitous Performative Utterance

This concept is sort of a tricky one and it took me awhile to come up with an idea.  But I was thinking about when people say the phrase, “Oh my God!”  Now, that phrase—if it is taken literally—is saying/doing several things.  It is mainly a proclamation of someone’s trust in God.  It says “I believe in God and I am acting on my faith by turning to Him for help.”  It’s also often used as a cry of joy or excitement toward the Lord that reinforces who they are and where their joy comes from.  Mostly, it’s a way for Christians to be Christians.  It’s a phrase that tells other people who they are and also communicates to God the relationship that they have with Him.  However, what if someone who doesn’t believe in God says that phrase?  Many Christians will refer to that as “taking the Lord’s name in vain.”  And that is the exact phrase that made me think that this phrase might fall into this category of an infelicitous performative utterance.  Obviously, to do something “in vain” means that to do it would be pointless or useless.  If there is a way to “take the Lord’s name in vain” then that implies that there is a way to use His name not in vain.  So, back to the example of a non-Christian saying “Oh my God!”  What are they actually saying/doing when they use that phrase?  Honestly, most of the time I believe it’s just a careless exclamation that nobody really thinks about.  But I think it can also be an intentional choice to use that phrase rather than another.  I think that (whether consciously or subconsciously) if the person exclaiming it doesn’t mean to speak to God, then they are throwing around that name very lightly.  It’s almost as if they are saying that the phrase is vain or useless.  It can be rather offensive to people who are Christians to hear it used that way.  And I think that it also declares something about who they are.

"What is Performance?”

As I was reading the article, every time Carlson mentioned another one of the definitions of performance, I would think, "Oh! That's it! That one is definitely right!"  However, the one that stood out to me the most was when he said that "these [performing] arts require the physical presence of trained or skilled human beings whose demonstration of their skills is the performance."  I really appreciated the wording of this part.  As I think over all the different types of performances that I can come up with, I still believe that this accurately describes it.  Although, I do think that it then raises the question of what a "skill" is.  I think most people can agree that a pianist playing the piano for others is a performance of their skills, but would stopping and freezing in a busy train station require any type of skill?  Would that then answer the question of whether or not that sort of display is actually a performance?  I'm really not sure.

When I consider a type of performance that sort of challenges the idea of performance, I think of a teacher.  On one hand, they are just a person doing their job, speaking in front of students, and sharing their knowledge.  But on the other hand, I believe their is a "demonstration of skills" as well as a sort of "consciousness of doubleness" that the teacher is aware of.  They are still themselves, but there is a sense of portraying themselves in a distinct manner.  The teacher chooses whether to perform as a kind and caring teacher, a fun teacher, or a stern or strict teacher.  They choose whether to use only speaking as their script or whether to include music or other media to help convey their points.  There is also usually a vast difference between the teacher of a kindergarten class and one who teaches high school biology.  I also can see an argument on the other side that teaching is not a performance at all.  However, I believe that it is a type of performance.  In fact, my love for performance has pushed me toward considering teaching at different times in my life.  I believe it requires a similar set of skills as an actor speaking lines in a play, which seems to be one of the things that almost all people will agree is a type of performance.