Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Onstage / Performing Arts / Arts The State Theatre's Social Media Stunt
Posted by Lawrence Bommer on 03.10.10 at 05:34 PM
The State Theatre of Chicago is promoting what it calls the "Tangled Web"—encouraging audience members to turn on their cellphones during the March 11 performance of the company's Ajax/Antigone so they can "actively participate via social media, Facebooking their opinions and tweeting pics of the show in real time, breaking down the third wall." (Actually it's the fourth wall, unless they want to get the set designer pissed off.) According to artistic director Tim Speicher, "This is the 21st century, yet there's a temptation to treat theater as if it were the 19th."
Maybe he's right. In the 19th century and all the centuries before, theater was intense, immediate, and non-negotiably real. But in 2010, it seems, it must be virtual, processed, and networkable—so much second-hand sensation. Like the proverbial tree in the forest that doesn't fall unless someone hears it, a show isn't real until it's been blogged.
What a clever way to get a paying crowd to hype your production while ignoring it at the same time.
The theater is where we go to find the illusions that tell the truth. It can't be reduced to an art form twice removed from its vibrant actuality. It's the ultimate real deal—in your face and of the moment. Diluting it with a bored or boring twitter does the art no favors.
Comments (58)
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No one is more annoyed by social media non-etiquette than I, so I'm rather surprised to find myself intrigued by State Theatre's idea. I will be attending the second performance of the show, so I'll miss the planned semi-mayhem, but I think encouraging a collision between "new media" and "old media" holds fascinating potential, if employed in an evocative rather than self-promotional way. There's something interesting about including "audience misbehavior" in an artistic endeavor. Heck, the Fluxus aristts were doing that 40 years ago. I certainly understand your reservations (my blood pressure spikes when I see an audience member merely check the time on a cell phone during a show). But I'm actually disappointed State Theatre is doing their Tangled Web for only one performance. I'd like to experience this rather novel approach to live performance, even if it irritated me no end. Sometimes audience discomfort can be powerfully meaningful, as the sadly out-of-action J. Scott made viscerally clear in his Nihilist Gelo productions several years ago.
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Tim Speicher here from The State. I am a little terrified of the Tangled Web, as I was when we started live-broadcasting our rehearsal process online. To me, the theater is a holy space which deserves reverence from the audience. But, I acknowledge that the world has changed, as has the way we interact with art. Will embracing new technology detract from the audience experience? Maybe, maybe not. The thing is, we don't know, but we want to give it a try. We must risk failure in the pursuit of success, lest our successes be diminished. Tonight, we'll see how the process goes. If it works, we will welcome a new form of communication into an ancient space for every performance. It is not a stunt so much as an experiment, testing the waters of the future.
I applaud the State for its attempt to forge new territory in theater. The experiment may succeed or fail. What has made Chicago theater an innovative, influential, international force is the willingness--and the permission--to take risks, to make bold choices, to fall and get up and go forward. It is up to the new, young companies to test the waters of new aesthetics and new technology in order to reach new audiences.
Lawrence Bommer's hostility to the Tangled Web "stunt" reminds me of the negative response from older audiences to the theatrical experiments attempted by Bommer's and my generation when we were young. The nudity and audience interaction in HAIR and in the rock operas that I performed in with the Chicago Free Theater in the late 1960s; the comic-book aesthetic of Organic Theater's 1970s hit WARP!; the use of video to complement actor J. Pat Miller's portrayal of a dying Antonin Artaud in THE ARTAUD PROJECT in the early 1980s . . . these are just a few examples off the top of my head. Hell, I remember when tradition-minded critics objected to multiracial casting because it wasn't "believable": what I call the "How can Tiny Tim be black?" syndrome.
It's easy to welcome every new gimmick that comes along to prove that you're "with it," as we used to say. But the examples that Albert Williams cites perfectly prove my case. These were all wonderful innovations created by theater mavens to enhance the show. Not one of them took our attention from the stage. They required our eyes on the prize. They were part of the play. "Tangled Web" is not.
What is selfish and solipsistic when individuals do it during a show doesn't change because there's supposedly safety in numbers. The play's the thing. As usual, Shakespeare knew best: As we can see in his advice to the players, this experienced playwright was well aware that the groundlings would make it a very different show if the actors pandered to them. If people in 1776 started writing letters during THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL, it would be considered rude and imbecilic. It still is in 2010.
The State Theatre is asking its audience to ignore their show in order to post possible laundry lists on Facebook, an indulgence that has nothing to do with the immediacy of theater. A play is not virtual. It certainly doesn't require this kind of delicious distraction at best. Imagine if Albert Williams started to write his review while the show was going on, presumably more intent on what he was composing than what he was hearing… State Theatre wouldn't like that. So why be hypocrites on March 11? “Tangled Web” is just multitasking gone haywire, the theatrical version of texting while driving. It’s ridiculous to embrace the new just because it’s the latest form of an old mistake.
The play may be the thing, but sometimes the performance is more than the play on stage. Sure, lots of people texting and tweeting during the show may take attention away from "the play," but that experience -- watching a play as it is documented, interrupted, and perhaps rendered incidental -- could be fascinating. It could also be an irritating bore. But it's an artist's prerogative to throw monkey wrenches into the works and see what happens.
Last night was our Tangled Web Event, where we asked the audience to tweet, take pictures, text, update Facebook, and generally engage in social media during our show. While we wanted the audience to specifically tweet about the show, we acknowledged that the temptation would be there to wander elsewhere on the web and forget about what was going on onstage. (More info here: http://www.statetheatrechicago.com/index.p…)
The experiment was different than I anticipated. I expected the actors to be distracted by a blue haze of light on the faces in front of them. I expected one or two phones to ring in our most intimate moments. I expected a few bright flashes from cameras. In reality, none of this happened. Our audience was completely respectful and reserved.
When we asked the actors about it in the talk-back, they said that they barely noticed that the audience was doing anything out of the ordinary (a testament, in part, to our phenomenal cast). When we asked the audience how they felt, many said that they didn't feel comfortable directing their attention anywhere but the stage.
I wanted to learn something from the experience, and I did. I learned that I need to trust my audience more. They have chosen to spend 70 minutes with us in a dark room, exploring the depths of the human soul. It is our responsibility to hold their attention. So, we're going to invite our audience to engage in social media every night. We will still encourage them to turn off their flash, and to silence their phones, but if they want to look at some cat videos during our performance, that's their prerogative.
Looking into my crystal ball, I believe that the pre-show speech will become "silence your phones and turn off your flash," but that audiences will be encouraged to share their experience with their friends immediately, while still in the theatre space. As producers of an ancient art form, we would be foolish to ignore the future. I, for one, welcome the change.
Clearly you are totally committed to your gimmicky attempt to make your audiences twitter about your show the way Nike managed to get suckers to buy shirts with swooshes on them. Sadly, you don't respect your actors or your audience enough to ask them to sit down, shut up and listen to what the performers, designers and director have been working on for weeks. It's not about trusting your audience. It's about trusting your art which clearly you State folks cannot afford to do.
Of course, even with all eyes supposedly on the stage, audience members' minds are free to wander but at least they're not disturbing the concentration of those around them or the actors before them. (And don't tell me artists as driven as actors aren't concerned when an audience is encouraged to ignore them and bleet, tweet or text whatever bombast enters their minds rather than actually listen to the show they've paid to see! Also don't tell me that the sight of cellphone screens bouncing up and down hour after hour isn't a huge distraction to the fools who are trying to take your show seriously!)
You have mistaken multitasking for audience interest, as if AJAX/ANIGONE just isn't enough to hold the heart of a crowd. But then I suppose it's incredibly repressive of professors to demand that you turn off your laptops so you could learn about heart surgery--which just might be useful later when you're called on to perform an operation.
In theater, the difference between the actual on stage and the virtual that's offstage is immense. Anything that diminishes it hurts the art. It's not old school to believe that if it ain't broke, you don't fix it. The old cliche about "phoning in a performance" has taken on a whole new meaning and I deplore the self-indulgence and manipulation behind it.
To "the play's the thing," I'll just add another marvelous maxim: "Attention must be paid." This mayfly mentality is a sad way to water down the theatrical experience as if the whole damn show is just one big intermission. Why bother to perform at all if you haven't got enough pride in your work to ask your audience to lend you their ears? I hope you're willing to offer refunds to those audience members who were silly enough to want to see a play as directly, honestly and actually (not virtually!) produced and performed as it was 2,000 years ago. But then Shakespeare is just so 1599. Now his latest play would be processed, texted and networked to death. Clearly HAMLET would not be real until it finally showed up on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and a cellphone near you.
Here's to the FOURTH WALL. Long may it protect the other three.
One last thing and I'll cool my jets. It's the implied insult to your audience. What kind of amnesiac attention span do you think they have that they can't listen to an actor's speech without hitting the cellphone with an instant reaction to something that's still unspooling? How can they know what's about to happen next in the story? Or is it more important to make some half-baked, impulsive, reflexive judgment on a drama (that is in fact an organic activity constantly in flux and not really finished when it's over)? Sitting in silence in the dark is just too much to ask a multitasking mob who have more on their mind than anything as irrelevant as Sophocles or Tennessee Williams.
"But then Shakespeare is just so 1599...Here's to the FOURTH WALL. Long may it protect the other three."
Surely you don't need us to tell you that Shakespeare never had a fourth wall. It's a modern concept. His audiences were rowdy. They hissed at the bad guys, cheered on the good guys, and guffawed at the bawdy humor, all while eating their oranges, cracking hazelnuts, and checking out the hot ladies and men all around them. Nearly, if not every single soliloquy he ever wrote was addressed directly to the audience, and he repeated important information, to make sure it was heard over the rabble.
If that's not your thing, that's fine. If you want to sit on your hands and pretend you're in a museum...to each their own. Me, I'd prefer my theatre not to be shrink-wrapped and locked behind a glass case. Let me laugh at Thersites' jokes in Troilus and Cressida without someone turning around to shush me. And don't pretend for a second that someone taking a picture of a live performance and sharing it with the cloud is any more obnoxious than the status quo in Shakespeare's day.
To cast Shakespeare in marble and put him up on a pedestal surrounded by razor wire is to do him, and his audiences, a disservice.
So now this stunt is not the harbinger of a new fearless future, as they've promoted it. No, it's really a nostalgic pursuit of ancient rudeness. Whatever.
But you needn't pine for the glory days of erping groundlings and nookie in box seats. You can go to a rock concert and get all of this and somehow it fits the music perfectly. But, no, the behavior you mention doesn't suit the modern stage and it was always a problem for the ancient one. (Just look at the hicks who shoot up the melodrama in SHOWBOAT.) I don't want to my neighbor pulling out a flashing cellphone to remind me I'm really in an audience and not eavesdropping as Juliet dies. Or a concealed weapon to celebrate a funny line they just heard. It's called the suspension of disbelief, Sam, and it requires a code of civility among audience members. Face it: What you're really nostalgic for is kindergarten.
Anyway I'll play devil's advocate (or practice reductio ad absurdum): I dare--no, I double dare--the imperiously named State Theatre to be consistent. Don't just encourage your audiences to text or twitter during the show. Why repress their urge to ignore the show? State Theatre must let them talk as often and as loudly as they want, just as they supposedly did during Shakespeare's time. (By the way if SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE is any proof, that was hardly the norm but never mind.)
Yes, let them gab away, maybe spit a little and belch a bit, and we'll see just how enjoyable the performance will be. I needn't cite the boors who gabble during a movie, who you would probably also defend, to suggest that that would be hell in the dark. I can't wait to hear their report about how those performances go and how the actors as well as the audience appreciated the antics. In no time people will start to miss the candy unwrappers. You can call it the "Talking Web."
So just where will State Theatre draw the line? Not easy when, to mix metaphors, you've opened a Pandora's Box by letting your paying audience shop on eBay and ruin the evening for someone else.
So, yes, I'm all for laughing and sobbing whenever the PLAY suggests it, Sam. But that's not what this imbroglio is about. It's an invitation to bully, preen, pontificate, fart, and show off your IPhone applications to three rows in all directions.
Anyway, next time you're at Goodman Theatre, just try taking that camera phone picture and emailing it to your friends. When they glare at you to indicate that you are not yet a kind and considerate human being but instead a narcissistic creep, you can loudly explain how much you miss 1599. Of course, they'll understand the moment you explain your enlightened rudeness. You do that, Steve, and report back to this blog just how well it went.
Silence is and always will be golden.
Congratulations, Mr. Speicher, on doing something that's a bold new experiment and being willing to fail in art in order to try something new. It must be something worthwhile to have created such strong outburst of both praise and condemnation.
As for Mr Bommer, I'm sorry to say it, but you sound like every single critic and "social defender" who has decried rock music as the absolute destruction of our country over the last 50 years. Any artist who is afraid to do something because it could change the hallowed sanctity of the art form is a poor artist. In this view, Picasso, Matisse, and every artist who created collage work in the 1960s destroyed painting as an art form.
I am curious as to whether Mr. Bommer attended the performance last night, and if he was as horrified as he expected. I'd love to hear from people who were actually in the audience. Although I suspect I would prefer a non-tweeting performance, personally, I applaud the curiosity and courage of The State Theatre for trying something new. My experience is that different types of theatre performances demand different types of things from me as an audience member. I appreciate the opportunity to stretch my mind regarding both subject matter and presentation. I thought that's what theatre was supposed to be about. At least that's what I look to theatre to do for me.
It's nice that the documentary footage contained in Shakespeare in Love held up so well after 400 years, isn't it? If anything, I think the movie shows that if the play is interesting enough, the audience will shut up and listen, whether they're holding iPhones or hazelnut shells.
"...you can loudly explain how much you miss 1599."
Er, that was you, not me. I was just helping you get your facts straight, seeing as you were nostalgic for an imagined past.
You seem to be afraid that inviting an audience to use their devices to record and share something they enjoy is opening up the floodgates for everyone to kick back, crank up Pandora and share their Iggy Pop playlist with everyone. Or that they're going to play Rolando during the big death scene. It's more likely that if someone has paid good money for a ticket, they're going to pay attention to the show. The State has merely invited folks to document the experience.
Goodman makes an announcement before every show to turn off phones and not take pictures. The State, as an experiment, has asked the opposite, so why not give it a try? I'll respect the rules of either company when I'm on their respective turf. If that's not your thing, DON'T GO. It's not that complicated.
Though you're right about one thing: every time I whip out my iPhone, I feel an uncanny desire to fart and then punch someone in the face. Technology is truly destroying us all.
I was at the State's performance last night, Phoenix. As far as I could tell, no one tweeted or texted or played with a Gameboy during the show, even though we were encouraged to do so during the curtain speech. Someone in the front row did take pictures for the first half hour or so -- and I realized I was thankful that I was sitting far enough away from the photographer so that nothing he did registered in my field of vision, because it would have irritated me greatly to have his photo-taking draw my attention away from the stage.
But then I began to think about how 'acceptable' audience behaviors vary from performance to performance. At many improv shows, for example, audiences are encouraged to drink (and I may be mistaken, but the last time I went to Second City I think a pre-show announcement asked us to keep our conversations to a minimum, suggesting that audience conversation is acceptable there). At most jazz concerts the audience is expected to clap at the end of each instrumentalist's solo in every song, even if the solo is lousy -- and even though that applause typically drowns out two or three bars of music. At a symphony concert, only the uninitiated dares to clap between movements. At a baseball game crowds can scream and wave their arms and do anything they want to distract the opposing team's pitcher; at a tennis match, everyone must sit in reverent silence for every moment of play. Some congregations sit quietly, while others shout and sing and dance.
So with these thoughts going through my head, I craned my neck to take another look at the photographer in the front row, and I thought to myself, "That's how things work at a State Theatre show. It's their theater, not mine, and they can create any social contract with their audience that they choose. Audiences can sign onto the contract or go elsewhere. If audiences stay away in droves, they'll change their contract."
I also wondered if the State had considered allowing their audience to use social media in a truly social, rather than private, manner. Instead of encouraging audiences to text people who aren't in the theater, what about inviting them to post their comments on a web page that is projected on the back wall of the theater? In other words, we'd be posting comments on the show as it unfolds before us, comments meant to be read by everyone else in the audience. Just think of the possibilities.
It seems to me that Mr. Bommer has raised several distinct complaints with The State's "Tangled Web" event which are not being discussed separately here.
1. This is a gimmick, a trick to get people talking about the show and sell seats.
2. It's disrespectful to the artists involved to encourage distraction from the show.
3. It's disrespectful to theatre in general to take what is meant to be a commitment to an illusion and "break the fourth wall." (in this category I also sort all the claims that theatre is "the ultimate real deal" and that to cheapen that with secondhand experience is an affront. Importantly, it's an affront not to any person or people in particular, but it's just WRONG because it's theatre and it deserves a certain kind of respect. "In theater, the difference between the actual on stage and the virtual that's offstage is immense. Anything that diminishes it hurts THE ART." [emphasis mine])
In response to 1 - times are tough for theatre companies. Tough all over, but I don't fault any company for doing anything they can to get the word out and encourage interest in live theatre - unless what they're doing is, itself, objectionable. So, while a marketing ploy can be cheap and/or lame, the mere fact of it being a marketing ploy doesn't make it cheap or lame.
2 - Obviously the artists involved were willing to produce "Tangled Web," or they would have been at liberty to object. If they don't mind, I don't see why I should mind. As a performer I know that sometimes what I'm doing onstage will not be the center of attention - I'm doing it to support the overall moment, not expecting attention to be specifically paid. If the performers, designers and technicians are cool with making an evening where people might sometimes be distracted from what's happening onstage, well, I think that's fine - and, as other people have noted on here already, there are plenty of performance traditions where divided attention is assumed.
3 - This is the argument of every stuffy harrumphing rhetoric professor of yesteryear tutting and fretting over some new book or play or music. "You can't do that, it's bad for THE ART! THE ART might get offended if you do it like that! You don't want to piss off THE ART, not even for a single night, because it might go away and we might not be able to get it to come back!" The art will be just fine, Mr. Bommer. The State is trying something, neither they nor we know how it will turn out, but I'll be darned if it doesn't sound interesting and worth trying to me. I will quote one more thing from Mr. Bommer:
"... can't listen to an actor's speech without hitting the cellphone with an instant reaction to something that's still unspooling? How can they know what's about to happen next in the story? Or is it more important to make some half-baked, impulsive, reflexive judgment on a drama (that is in fact an organic activity constantly in flux and not really finished when it's over)?"
It seems to me that, if this project were fully realized, we would be left, after the performance, with a hypertext document archive of a community's experience of an evening of theatre that was initially reported in realtime and then commented on as the play unraveled. Mistakes in perception would be revealed - maybe people would even miss things because they were thinking and talking about something else. All this happens in theatre anyway, but now it would be recorded and preserved. Doesn't that sound cool? That sounds like it could be cool. And no, I'm not worried that we're killing the play in order to maybe get this one cool thing. As Mr. Bommer says, one's experience of theatre isn't over even after the show has finished - so, would he say that a review can never be written?
Mr. Hayford's response is properly protective of what seems to be a new footnote in audience-actor innovations. Who knows? As a one-time thing, “Tangled Web” might be breaking a bit of ground, if only to show how bad an idea it was in the first place. The proposals to document a show in real time are fine as part of an experiment in which all audience members sign waivers. The results might be intriguing but I can't see it as a normal night in the theater.
But Mr. Hayford and Mr. Reynolds ignore the core of my argument, which is the disrespect at the heart of all distractions, however well-meant, from the play, which is the only reason we're in the theater. Disrespect to the players (who will never REALLY agree to be ignored) and to the audience (who are silly enough to want to see and hear undisturbed what they paid for). There is a reason we've reached the point where, compared to Shakespeare's time, interruptions short of coughs and latecomers have been minimized until the play really is the thing. It's called civilized behavior. I'm curious: Just what would constitute disruptive behavior enough to get you to throw an audience member out of your show, Staters? You've set a precedent and given permission to a lot of stuff you may not know how to handle.
Your right to wave your hand ends at the end of your neighbor's nose. Likewise your right to communicate during a show ends when your neighbor is disturbed by it, as he will by those who think they’re privileged enough to play with their toys in the dark.
Interestingly, nobody's taken me up on dare that State Theatre allow talking on cellphones as well as texting. Why not, folks? It's all cut from the same cloth. You won't because you know you’re on a slippery slope that leads to a "failure to communicate."
Silence is and always will be golden. Except when it’s laughter, applause or even boos (which at least come from people paying attention to what's happening).
But consider the mentality of people who talk during movies or, for that matter, text during plays: "Anything I have to say (or write with the light on) is more important and urgent than anything happening on the screen or the stage." That's crap--which is why critics don’t want or dare to write our reviews during the play and then send them off during the curtain calls. It would sure save us time. Maybe we should, since instant analysis seems to be he order of the day. It’s so old school to wait a day before rendering judgment on a theater’s labor of weeks. But it’s not old school--it's common sense and garden-variety decency. Let’s get real here—and the most real thing is the play. Nothing else comes close, folks.
Theater is not NASCAR. It can’t drown out its audience. Theater casts a spell. Woe unto the boors--and ESPECIALLY the opening night claques--who break it, whether by sexting, talking, spitting, or kissing (they’re all deliberate distractions)! If you don't want to take a chance on suspending your disbelief, go home to your webcam and start your own show. You're your own perfect audience.
One last dare that you can ignore like the last one: I dare the proponents of the State’s attempt to turn a theater space into a chat room to argue that they fully respect the interests of the majority of audience members. My argument, even if it is from a fuddy-duddy professor (a curiously anti-intellectual and faux-populist slam for a theater critic to offer), at least addresses and defends the needs of the OTHER audience members. What about their right to enjoy the show as fully as possible?
Far from elitist, mine is easily the most democratic argument in this blog. Theater is a common trust, folks, not a public excuse for private communication.
So much for the "captive audience" that I tell program advertising prospects!
Seems we've poked the wound of a sore subject. Personally, I think cocktails are the only thing that should be allowed into the theatre that can distract (or sooth) the audience. OK, maybe a Footlights program to read if the show's boring. Drinking and reading don't distract the actors or those around us unless we get belligerent when we drink!
But seriously, perhaps we should all evaluate why we're in the theater in the first place.
Cheers!
It's Ms. Reynolds, thankyouverymuch. :)
"Interestingly, nobody's taken me up on dare that State Theatre allow talking on cellphones as well as texting. Why not, folks? It's all cut from the same cloth. You won't because you know you’re on a slippery slope that leads to a 'failure to communicate.'"
A couple of things here:
1. When the audience is specifically asked to use their devices to document and share the experience, the very act of pulling out a cellphone and typing on it is no longer taboo. As such, it's surprisingly less distracting than if one were to do the same thing elsewhere. It's a different social contract.
2. Your entire argument rests on the "slippery slope" fallacy. A refresher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slop…
Your "dares" won't be taken up, because they have absolutely nothing to do with the intent of this experiment. It's not about purposeful distraction. The announcement is made before the show begins--you know what to expect, and you have every right to leave right then and there.
As someone else mentioned, different shows ask different things from their audience. As far as I can tell, The State isn't inviting all people everywhere to use their devices for every show they see, only their audience, for this particular play. Why do you need to lump them all together as one?
I take issue with the notion that "the play" is "the only reason we're in the theater." Usually, that is true. But not always. Sometimes theater artists mount plays in order to complicate/obfuscate/deconstruct them; such productions are often as much about the play as everything missing from or suppressed in the play. Sometimes the things that surround a play are rendered as meaningful as the play itself (as is often the case in site-specific work). Sometimes, the play is just the starting point for a production. Imagine, for example, if a company mounted Hamlet, gave a dozen audience members camcorders and encouraged them to film the show from any spot they wanted -- and their images were projected live onto the stage as the show went along. That production wouldn't be "the play," but it might make for an interesting, meaningful performance. It's not necessarily "better" or "worse" than a straight-up production of the Hamlet; it would be something else entirely. So if the State wants to make their production as much about their play as their audiences' documentation of that play, so be it. Rather than dismissing the attempt based on the values I might bring to their theater, I find it more useful to evaluate their attempt based upon the terms the piece sets for itself.
I can't believe I wrote "production of the Hamlet" in my previous post. Criminey, makes me sound like somebody's grandmother.
"the core of my argument, which is the disrespect at the heart of all distractions, however well-meant, from the play, which is the only reason we're in the theater. Disrespect to the players (who will never REALLY agree to be ignored) and to the audience (who are silly enough to want to see and hear undisturbed what they paid for). There is a reason we've reached the point where, compared to Shakespeare's time, interruptions short of coughs and latecomers have been minimized until the play really is the thing."
1. As a player I know very well I am often ignored. It happens. We are in service of the audience's experience.
2. Just a few comments ago you were praising Shakespeare's standard of performance. It seems now that a few reminders of the actual standards of that day have convinced you that we are serving THE ART "better" than Shakespeare's audience did.
"But consider the mentality of people who talk during movies or, for that matter, text during plays: "Anything I have to say (or write with the light on) is more important and urgent than anything happening on the screen or the stage." That's crap--which is why critics don’t want or dare to write our reviews during the play and then send them off during the curtain calls."
I very often see critics writing notes during the play. That's how I know they are critics, generally. Surely the act of writing notes is as distracting as texting - at least for the reviewer him or herself.
I thought my friends' reports of the recent NYC revival of "Raisin In The Sun" was very interesting. People were very rowdy, cheering who they saw as the heroes and booing villians, before they saw the whole play. This meant that, in the estimation of my quiet, white, theatre-people friends, they were missing parts of the play, or even making mistakes about to whom they should be sympathetic. This is what happens when a different theatrical standard is introduced to an existing form.
Many performance traditions neither require nor expect rapt attention from the audience. There are plays out there that take a week of public festival to perform. No one is silent or attentive throughout. Your claim (Mr. Bommer) that these performances are somehow... what? More removed from "correct" theatre? is not only silly, but borders on the xenophobic. The State is trying something different, but nothing about this thing they are trying makes me think it's necessarily "worse." If your only argument is that it is worse because it is more removed from the theatrical tradition with which you are comfortable (which is NOT the tradition with which many even in this country are raised) then I encourage you to broaden your definition of "theatre."
Basically, I realize after writing this, I'm echoing Mr. Hayford's previous sentiment. But, to be fair, I said it much less succinctly.
Mr. Hayford's torturous argument that sometimes a play is not the reason we're in a playhouse (what the f--??) is the perfect example of a distinction without a difference. It doesn't matter whether they're "deconstructing" or "meta-morphing" the text--it still requires our undivided attention, which is clearly too much for the State Theatre to ask from its audience. As for the "xenophobic" slam, it's so off base it's now circling the moon.
This is what my critics (sure, critics need critics) can't get their heads around--the rights of other to see a play without obnoxiously being reminded that they're actually in an audience, an awareness that wrecks whatever illusions are being presented on stage. Or does your appreciation of a show suddenly soar when the guy next to you flashes open his Blackberry to purchase a sofa or read his Kindle?
As for critics taking notes in the dark, yes, I can see how that would be a disruption and I apologize retroactively to the many people who may have temporarily distracted over the last few decades. But it's a necessary evil, not a guilty pleasure, since I don't have total recall or a photograph memory. Maybe I should be taking pictures too--just kidding. At any rate I sure don't want us writing our reviews as well, which technically should be permitted at the State Theatre's new theatrical kindergarten. (Hopefully, some of them will take naps as well.)
Anyway, both my dares have yet to be taken up. Even worse, nobody in this blog has yet to defend an audience member's right to NOT ignore a show. That strikes me as kind of sad.
I know that State Theatre's stunt will be forgotten in next to no time and I'm kind of sorry to have given the gimmick so much undeserved attention when it's just pandering. (It has been rightly ignored elsewhere.) But it has produced a useful, if sometimes toxic, exchange of ideas about what's innovative and what's just trendy.
Most of all I'm perplexed by the utter conflation here of "different" with "better." I'm not arguing, Mr. Campion, for a theatrical tradition with which I'm comfortable but for a code of courtesy and civility that makes life and the arts as friction free and communal as possible. Narcissistic, childish, indulgent and boorish behavior, where your need to text a friend about the babysitter is more important than Ajax or Antigone, violates a lot more than comfort or security. It wrecks the--yes, I'll say it, Justin--art! This is such a no brainer I'm amazed it isn't common currency but, judging from these posts, the latest thing trumps the best solutions hands down. This is the last I'm going to say it because, as the two posts before this prove, the exchanges are getting mean-spirited, not what I intended when I started this chain of comments.
Mr. Bommer, I truly do appreciate your point of view and respect for the audience, especially these days with more limited dollars available to spend. However, it seems to me that this dicussion involves two separate concepts which are sometimes being treated as one.
I, too, believe it is completely inappropriate for people to be using cell phones/blackberries/iphones, etc. while in an audience for a performance. It is extremely disrespectful of those around you who also have paid.
The opening night of "AjaxAntigone" was a different situation, however. I had been following The State Theatre's website since rehearsals and was aware that they would be attempting something different, which might prove disruptive to some. They did not try to hide what they were doing, and in fact, consistantly let potential audience members know what they would be attempting. They did not encourage inattention, using electronic devices to send laundry lists or surf the Web. The idea was to see what would happen if social networking within the audience about the production was allowed to happen during the production itself.
As I was aware of the experiment, I was able to choose whether to spend my money on that performance, on another performance of "AjaxAntigone", or to forego this production altogether.
I am glad that they tried it. I hope that this doesn't become an "only" option for performances by The State, as it is one that I, as a fuddy-duddy theatre-goer, am not particularly interested in attending. Nonetheless, I appreciate the option of trying something new.
Again, I do get disturbed by the lack of civility in many audiences today. I appreciate and agree with your stand that such lack of civility is a problem which should not be encouraged. With that said, I did not perceive this production of "AjaxAntigone" as encouraging the lack of civility. Rather, I saw it as a choice to try a new experience of theatre as an audience member.
Oh, I finally get it. Mr. Bommer heard about "Tangled Web" and thought The State was encouraging a general degredation of the social mores that keep people from texting during shows. And here I was getting into a big debate about whether the illusion of the fourth wall was a necessary part of performance and what the standards of spectatorship are worldwide! So, ok, final responses.
No, having one night when people are encouraged to digitally comment on the play itself doesn't mean that people will forget how to not do that.
Also, (and I now realize this is tangential to the original complaint) this idea of sitting silently and doing one's best to pretend that what is happening onstage is real is not the only way of engaging theatre. It seems to be Mr. Bommer's favorite - so much so that the standards of Shakespeare's own time aren't attentive enough for Shakespeare's plays - but plenty of shows don't have this expectation, and manage to make an impact on the audience.
Lawrence,
Oddly enough, I find myself on your side for all the wrong reasons. I would love to see the State take you up on your 'Talking Web' dare, because at least that would be something daring. As is, Speicher is encouraging his audience to promote from within the house. (Let's be honest Lawrence, all this Ikea/Kindle/talking to the babysitter rhetoric is for shit. Most anyone taking the State up on the challenge will be doing so in reference to the show -- taking photos, live-tweeting, etc. You don't leave your house so you can pay money to sit in a dark room and shop online.) It's a very minor gimmick that Speicher is blowing out of proportion with his "ancient form/holy place" oh so precious theatrical bullshit speak. Note, Mr. Speicher: you aren't the first to discover technology won't kill theater. You're just one of the few who feel the need to verbally abuse it during the embrace.
I completely believe the response from Speicher's performers. If you go in with the vaulted expectations that you're going to have to fight the machines for every second, the reality that the few people actually tech-involved are doing so in (their) interest of the show is going to be pretty easy to deal with. I'm all for challenge and all for experiment and especially all for finding out how technology does and does not work for theater. But this isn't really all that shocking. But instead of assuming the audience is going to act like assholes so you can praise them when they don't (disingenuous, Tim, and a little insulting), play to their intelligence. Require audiences to use tech in order to follow part of the show -- that's an experiment for you. And an experiment in content, not marketing, which is what this really boils down to for the State.
(Also, Lawrence, please refrain from using the Goodman as a 'proper' audience. Goodman houses are some of the least respectful in the city -- sitting in the audience at the Goodman makes me want to choke things.)
A few things, now that the debate seems to be winding down a tad.
1. This was indeed more a marketing experiment than an artistic experiment. I told the actors about it before they agreed to join the cast because this is a funny place where marketing and art intersect. Small companies like our need to be innovative in our administrative and artistic practices alike. Indeed, our preshow announcement giving audiences the permission to turn on their cell phones says exactly that.
2. If my language, to this point, has been bombastic, it's stemmed from being unsure of the the outcome of our experiment. I didn't assume the audience would be "assholes," but I did fear it. So, it was a relief when they weren't. This is only our second show we've ever produced, and we took every risk possible in the pursuit of something great. While the jury is still out on our success, at least we gave it a shot.
3. I really like the idea to use social media as part of a show itself. I'd actually been trying to figure out how to integrate it already, and this discussion has sparked a few ideas. I don't know how we could have done it for AjaxAntigone, but maybe it could work for Talk Radio or something else.
4. Lastly, let me say that I completely understand Lawrence's position. Until a few months ago, I held it myself. But, a lot of people in the community were talking about the idea, so we decided to try it. And you know what? It's not nearly as revolutionary as you would think by reading this blog or our own pre-event rhetoric. The two people to comment on this blog who have actually seen the show were underwhelmed by the experiment's impact. It neither transformed nor destroyed their experience. We're not advocating that every theatre company do this, or any company other than our own. We're not requiring anyone to direct their attention anywhere but the stage, but we aren't prohibiting it either. The experiment answered a few of our questions and raised some others. In the end, that's all we wanted.
Thanks for the post, Lawrence. I really appreciate hearing the many sides of this debate, as I think that any new idea needs to come under scrutiny before it can be embraced. Maybe we should grab coffee sometime to talk about this in greater detail (though I think every corner of this particular debate has been explored). Here's to more ideas, more successes, more failures, and more debates.
"...does your appreciation of a show suddenly soar when the guy next to you flashes open his Blackberry to purchase a sofa or read his Kindle?"
"Narcissistic, childish, indulgent and boorish behavior, where your need to text a friend about the babysitter is more important than Ajax or Antigone, violates a lot more than comfort or security."
Straw man, slippery slope...it's hard to have a proper debate when you continually cite examples like these.
Words in Defence of The State - My Very Own Unreasonably Lengthy Diatribe.
Dear Mr Bommer,
In my capacity as a performance practitioner, producer, critical theorist, pedagogue, or various combinations thereof, I have had the inestimable pleasure of being exposed to a variety of theatrical practises across a wide range of global locations. It has been my experience that in each, the kind of engagement into which the audience enters with the performance varies across not just continents, countries and cultures, cities or even specific venues, but indeed, across every single event. To superimpose one purportedly singular truth over the heterogeneous field of practices that constitute the living theatre is a presumption that is breathtaking both in its temerity and lamentable myopia. That you have not bothered to see AjaxAntigone in order to inform your opinion – nor spoken to the production team and performers, or audience members who have experienced it – is nothing short of astonishing. Since you go to such extraordinary lengths to make it clear that you missed entirely the overt investment that the director, producers, performers, and indeed their willing audiences have made in choosing to participate in this particular process, I that feel it is only fair to disabuse you of the crippling misapprehensions under which you so evidently labour.
Firstly, while I understand – and am initially sympathetic to – your conjecture about what The State’s Tangled Web experiment might portend, I am appalled by the greasy verse-slide you execute over the course of this debate. The scale of your argument ascends both in decibels and hysteria to the point where it finally constitutes little more than intemperate vitriol. And as if this were not emphatic enough a show of poor form, you offer a crowning turd in the well: your disingenuous appeal to an ethics of viewership which articulates at best a narrow and impoverished imagination, and at worst the kind of puritanical zealotry that would see all performance ossify into stylised hegemony. Attempting to hide behind this fig leaf – a mannered preserve of bourgeois values and consumption – merely highlights the paucity of your claims.
That your politics is vested in re-securing the privilege of a so-called “civilized” public as the frontier of legitimate art-making is clearly a problem by which you are not overly exercised. The “Art” you so rigorously defend has always been as much about affect as it has been a critical engagement with human geographies of power and agency: a “repetition of meaningful acts” which always already cites economies of class, gender, and race which mark (and distribute through local, national, regional and global circuits of performative agency) particular bodies and stories as they come to presence in performance. Surely, a potentially transgressive or radical performance praxis - which de-centers convention in pursuit of more affectively, aesthetically and politically efficacious transactions of agency between audiences, performers and performance (sub)texts - is a project whose value is at least worth acknowledging then? Ignoring for a second the western, heteropatriarchal genealogy that “the canon” necessarily traces, this is after all the premise upon which much of the modern theatre is founded. Stanislavsky, Barba, Meyerhold, Brook, Appia, Chekhov, Brecht, Ibsen, and yes, even Shakespeare (about whom you equivocate even as you attempt to romanticise the mores of his time) all come from this tradition. Far be it for me to suggest that the people at The State will one day number among this august company. However, it is to the intentions of their experiment that I speak here.
Secondly, the contract into which these people have entered is given from the start: this is not a coercion, but rather an invitation to participate in an experiment which, although risky (and therefore, exciting in no small measure) stands at the very least to provide interesting data about the ways in which electronic media increasingly intervene upon and mediate embodied transactions of meaning at the intersection of real and virtual spaces. To the extent that the very process of performative meaning-making is itself contingent on embodied textual, visual and spatial exposition held in productive tension with the unstable, often-times contradictory meanings that the performance event attempts to contain across the differing bodies to which and through which it exposes itself, I for one am intrigued by the possibilities and plausibility of a performance that extends beyond the material bounds of the space in which it occurs, particularly with respect to the abrogation of authorial agency that such an move necessarily stages. I am therefore pleased by the thoughts other contributors here have proffered vis-à-vis the possible implications of extending The State’s experiment into the mise-en-scène of the performance itself: this is productive.
Thirdly, it would appear that far from licensing a free-for-all frenzy of tweeting and picture-taking, audiences have thus far been respectful of the performance and performers: photographs recorded interesting or striking moments. Rather than distraction, this suggests an attention to specific details and minutiae of the performance that prompted the impulse to record, and thus make available again for future consumption, any number of the moments which “spoke” particularly strongly. Your objections and dismissal, conversely, seem over-determined by your belief that the availability of parallel activity diminishes the affective power of the performance event. On the contrary, I could make a compelling claim for the converse: that to photograph or record an event already framed as an affective transaction inherently demands a particular attention to oscillations which might reveal that one moment particularly worthy of recall – that moment of punctum, after Roland Barthes, which at once pierces and compels even as it remains obstinately beyond grasp. I invite you to read both Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag’s incisive assessments of the photograph as a mnemonic that selectively frames, captures, and thus renders specific moments as momentous.
And finally: for shame sir. The extraordinary sleight-of-hand that your “Talking Web dare” attempts to effect is a final effrontery to your readers’ intelligence, a weak effort to conceal the shaky ground onto which your diatribe inevitably charges by its end. You ask us, in sum, to completely ignore the specific event and conditions upon which The State predicates the Tangled Web exercise – which exercise has occasioned this lengthy exchange, and from the singular context of which any substantive claims ought to be made – while taking your own untenable claims at face value. But then again, I suppose it is foolish for me to have presumed that you yourself might be immune to the impulse to abjure a complete account in favour of making obtuse, “half-baked, impulsive” judgements before its conclusion.
You are entirely correct in stating, however, that your less-than-tender attentions have generated a wall of noise which, in the final analysis, only garners more attention for The State’s production. While you choose to lament this fact, it is the only thing for which I am able to thank you...would that your noise were in the service of informed debate rather than this vertiginous descent to ill-informed, unsporting and misguided polemic. Insofar as your own “art” is bounded by any ethic, I might venture to suggest that it, too, could profit from a little shaking up. Bombast indeed.
To The State, its ilk and others at the edge, I raise this glass and drain it down: here’s to those that dare. Much strength to you all on your respective journeys.
With Best Wishes,
-eM.
And for the record, I had to fight the urge to not send that from my BlackBerry. It appears that there might be some hope for us all yet Lawrence ;)
Mr. Prometheus,
What language was your comment written in originally that it was so badly translated into English? You should fire the translator. -- I can't respond to it fully until it is in a prose we can all understand. Anyway you've found a new way to obfuscate the issues, not by arguing anything in particular but by indulging in a congealed rhetoric that fogs up the eyes as it paralyzes the mind. But what I do glean from your verbiage is the same warmed-over pabulum: "New good, old bad!" and "Old dog critics can learn no new tricks!"
As for the more intelligible responses before it, I respect the sudden air of collegiality and reconciliation that has happily crept into the conversation. There is common ground possible after all. I'm glad to hear State Theatre admit that it was a marketing ploy after all, as I suggested from the start. That's an admirably honest confession that must somewhat discomfit those like Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Campion and Mr. Hayford who have twisted themselves into knots trying to make it an artistic ploy instead.
I can even respect it as that, however. Theater does die when it doesn't dare to change and, however misguided your knee-jerk reflex to please a multitasking audience, you're part of something bigger than we both are and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
As for the argument that sitting quietly in the theater is just one way of processing a play, my entire case is that it's the behavior that's passed the test of time. Once we learn it as children, it seems, as it is, quite natural, normal and, yes, civil. Plus how can we possibly measure what's going on INSIDE an audience's member head by how their bodies behave in the dark? The inner life of a spectator can be tumultuous, exuberant and serene and never give a clue, irritating or otherwise, to the person sitting next to him. Let's respect that inner life rather than creating a phony outer one--texting on a cellphone--that has nothing to do with the play at stake on the stage.
I'm actually glad I started this blog as I wasn't before when it seemed that even those not writing on behalf of their State Theatre were attacking me. We've brought up a lot of truths, half and whole, about the magic of theater, the power and limits of silence, and the spells cast by strangers in the night, whether on stage or sitting around you. It's been a good journey overall and I hope others will start blogs to continue what seems a very healthy controversy.
Something has been nagging at me as I have been reading and rereading all of the various posts on this thread. It seems that we have all taken "respect" in the theater to be sacrosanct. But must we? Is there never anything theatrically or performatively useful in misbehavior, even rudeness?
I think, for example, of the Viennese Actionists whose performances were often violent, sacrilegious and deliberately offensive. I think of J. Scott's first Nihilist Gelo production in Chicago, in a which a brusque, humorless man met audience members as they came through the theater's front door and forced them to sit apart from the people they'd brought to the show. I think of Anca Benera's installation in which audiences were intentionally misled around a gallery exhibition, in essence testing an audience's willingness to misbehave. I think of Werner Schwab's intentionally irritating, puerile plays. I think, too, of just about any moment of "audience participation" in a show, when audience members are expected to perform when they came only to spectate. It seems to me one could argue that various kinds of "disrespect" are at work in all of these examples.
So if an experiment like the State's results in certain behaviors that some might consider disrespectful, that fact alone isn't enough to condemn the experiment. Those behaviors are in fact part of the experience that is being explored. Unpleasant? For some, more than likely. But an unpleasant experience -- even an intermittently unpleasant experience -- can be interesting, evocative and meaningful. Artists can encourage disrespect and unpleasantness if they choose; J. Scott told me he did not want his audiences to enjoy their experience in his theater (I suspect Jarry and Artaud didn't either). I'm not suggesting that the State was encouraging rudeness; indeed Tim Speicher stated that he was worried that rude audience intrusions might ruin the production. But who knows, maybe rude audience intrusions would have made for an even more interesting evening. It's difficult to think of a more "immediate," "in-your-face" and "live" experience in the theater than watching a cast try to negotiate such an unpredictable environment.
Again the unpleasantness that Mr. Hayford praises comes from the productions he cites and not the audience. That is so OK with me it isn't funny. But that is NOT the same thing as State Theatre's admitted marketing ploy. When I talk about "respect," I mean suspension of disbelief so whatever spell a show's make-believe can cast has a fighting chance of working its magic. With an audience it's strictly pay to play.
As for unpleasantness as a potent ingredient in the theatrical experience, it sounds like an invitation for closet sadists to pass off an anti-social experiment as cutting-edge drama. Certainly, like Artaud, Brecht didn't intend his epic theater to comfort anyone. But the source of his unsettling satire was the stage and that's how it should be. When the unpleasantness comes from the audience, it is NOT an aesthetic innovation--it's just old-fashioned, garden-variety selfishness in action--as I have labored in this vineyard to prove for over a week now.
Yes, of course in the production I site the "unpleasantness" comes from the productions. But I'm questioning a larger idea about "acceptable" behavior in the theater. Anyone else want to chime in?
There is not one way to do theater.
There is not one accepted way for an audience to act.
There is not one way for performers to create.
There is not one way for companies to market.
New does not always equal good. Old does not always equal bad. And vice versa.
No fancy language here. Just plain and simple.
We are all free to explore and share our art however we want. So, get off your horses, high as they may be.
Thank goodness people are trying new things - whether they work or not. I'd prefer to see and experience something new than something just repeated because it was "good" and "civil" in the past. Growth is necessary for our soul's to grow.
Chill out. The State didn't end the world or the theater. They just tried something new for them and their audiences. And that's about all it was.
Bravo.
Good lord! I love it when theatre sparks this kind of communication... I am confused about one thing though... Mr. Bommer, have you seen the production yet? If so, how have your feelings changed or stayed the same?
Theatergoer absurdly silly, blanket pronouncements sound great until you realize they mean nothing. Rien. Nada. Niente.
Sure there's no one way for any of these activities. Who ever said there was? Not me or my high horse.
But there are REALLY BAD ways to do them and that's what I've pointed out all along about State Theatre's stunt.
And "we are not free to explore and share our art however we want", O permissive one. Not on your tintype. Are you free to shoot guns in the air during a show? To allow audience members to smoke cigarettes whenever the addiction takes them? To introduce sarin gas into the air around you?
There is a good reason for the phrase "You could hear a pin drop." Because that's when theater is at its most intense, intimate, powerful and personal. It's not when you're twittering your heartburn to all your Facebook friends.
No--and for good reason. So the moment you admit that some restrictions are necessary, the entire argument that lurks above this comment turns to nonsense as in making no sense.
Correction of the two typos in my last entry.
It should be "Theatergoer's" in the first sentence.
Most important, the third paragraph should read "We are free to explore and share...", not "We are not free to explore and share..."
Nothing like proof-reading after the fact...
When you can hear a pin drop, that's when ONE KIND of theatre happens. It's YOUR favorite, Mr. Bommer, but THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT THE BEST, or the only legitimate.
And, seriously! Enough with the crazy extrapolations! Sarin gas, are you serious? Heartburn? Why do you keep ignoring the facts of the event? People were encouraged to take pictures and engage in social networking about the show they were seeing. No laundry lists, no smoking cigarettes, and certainly no shooting guns in the air. It doesn't strengthen your case to keep coming back to these straw-man arguments which might be legitimate for some other show, but I don't see what they have to do with this one. You seem to be saying, "I don't like the use of cell phones in the theatre. I also don't like being poisoned by airborn chemicals. If a theatre allows one thing I don't like, what's to stop them from allowing all of them!?"
"Some restrictions are necessary" - yes, quite right. Different restrictions for different experiences. Not all the same, perfect, "time tested" restrictions for all occasions, because not all occasions require those restrictions, and many occasions would be destroyed by imposing those restrictions.
By creating new, different restrictions, State made "Tangled Web" a different event. Everyone involved signed off on those differences. They weren't doing a disservice to your favorite kind of theatre, Mr. Bommer - they were making a DIFFERENT KIND OF THING ENTIRELY.
It seems to me that you believe because Mr. Speicher said that the event was conceived as a marketing strategy you've 'won' this argument, but "Tangled Web" was first and foremost an art moment; a performance event. Regardless of the intentions of the creators it can be evaluated as such, and each part of it considered aesthetically. Your insistence on the innate superiority of the (very modern, anglo, people-who-see-a-lot-of-theatre-centric notion of) sitting-quietly-and-trying-to-pretend-what-you're-watching-is-real kind of performance event is not enough to convince me that this art event was "bad." Please, if this discussion is to continue, come up with something else! I'm not convinced that your favorite kind of theatre is innately preferable just because you say it's the right kind!
Also, to prometheus (eM.) - where I went to school we called that sort of contribution "Modern Culture and Media speak," that being the name of the major that studied (mostly) French cultural criticism and its descendents. I always thought they spoke pretty much exclusively to themselves. "Always-already," classic.
While I agree with the points you made (at least insofar as I understood them), I suspect you knew when you posted it that the vast majority of readers, including the person to whom you purport to be speaking, would be lost and frustrated by your diction and references. I'm not someone who believes that a contribution to this sort of forum has to be phrased to be understood by everyone, but seriously, sir or madam, that kind of thing can so easily be ignored - which is exactly what happened.
You've hit it on the head, ACampion--he's winning an imaginary argument.
And for the second time, Mr. Bommer, it's *Ms.* Reynolds. As in Samantha. I didn't mind correcting you once, since there was no reason for you to assume I was any other gender, but the fact that you repeat the mistake makes me question your reading comprehension...especially since you confuse my correcting your understanding of history and pointing out your own logical fallacies as "twisting myself into knots."
Sorry, MS. Reynolds.
Unaware when they've lost the argument, State Theatre's partisans continue to ignore the rights of audience members to give their undivided attention to a play. That tiny civility has nothing to do with whatever kind of theater I prefer. It's what everyone who worked two hours at a lousy job to pay for two hours at a play prefers. Or do you go to a show just hoping that the people around you will distract you from the stuff on stage? I didn't think so.
As for my extreme examples that so upset Mr. Campion, it's called "reductio ad absurdum." It was required to combat such inanities as Theatergoer2010's "We are all free to explore and share our art however we want." Actually we're not, which is all I've been saying all along. There are good and bad ways and State Theatre's marketing ploy, as they called it (in a moment of disarming truth-telling), is a bad and inevitably transient strategy.
And, yes, when a play is really, really good, sir or madame, you CAN hear a pin drop, usually followed by tumultuous enthusiasm, standing ovations and contagious applause. That's true of all plays, even comedy, because it proves that the audience is listening, which is both the least favor and the highest tribute an audience gives actors. Plays may be very different but audience reactions and requirements are not. It's the art that changes, while the audience in all its individual diversity and communal content remains an enduring constant.
Not incidentally, judging from the reviews that "Ajax/Antigone" has gotten, it would have been smarter for State Theatre to work harder on the show they actually offered their audience than to pander to their Blackberries and IPhones. Just a thought.
Let me suggest that most of the arguments set forth in this thread are not the kind that can -- or should -- be won or lost.
Let me also suggest that it's antithetical to the spirit of honest debate to dismiss or denigrate someone's thoughts simply because he/she writes in a prose style that may, at first pass, be difficult to understand.
Mr. Hayford, if you're referring to me - I don't believe I did denigrate the thoughts expressed, just the prose style itself. But, you're probably right, it wasn't appropriate to offer a lesson on diction in this forum. My apologies to eM.
Quoting Mr. Bommer.
"... it's called "reductio ad absurdum." It was required to combat such inanities as Theatergoer2010's "We are all free to explore and share our art however we want." Actually we're not, which is all I've been saying all along. There are good and bad ways and State Theatre's marketing ploy, as they called it (in a moment of disarming truth-telling), is a bad and inevitably transient strategy."
Well, I guess I disagree. I think we are free to do those things, as long as we don't hurt anyone and everyone knows what they're getting into.
"And, yes, when a play is really, really good, sir or madame, you CAN hear a pin drop, usually followed by tumultuous enthusiasm, standing ovations and contagious applause. That's true of all plays, even comedy, because it proves that the audience is listening, which is both the least favor and the highest tribute an audience gives actors. Plays may be very different but audience reactions and requirements are not. It's the art that changes, while the audience in all its individual diversity and communal content remains an enduring constant."
Wow. That is just not true. Audience reactions and requirements are NOT constant. I'm sure more examples won't help, since many have already been presented (remember the Shakespeare thing?), but here are the ones that pop off the top of my head: the Balinese puppetry tradition, Kabuki festivals, commedia del' arte, cabaret, many applications of the theatre of cruelty. Let me be very specific: all of these theatrical traditions allow the audience to impact the spectatorship of other audience members in greater ways than what is expected at a "traditional" modern Anglo sitting-quietly-and-pretending-it's-real play. In all of them, people get up and move around; in some there is an expected loud audience interactivity (which, let me remind us all, The State never proposed).
So, yes, the definition of a "good" audience is not constant. But the thing that bewilders me most about Mr. Bommer's argument is his insistence that the definition of a "good" play is. Don't we all get different things out of every piece we see? Yes, Mr. Bommer, you are right. There is something about the kind of performance which you call "plays" (reducing tragically the potential and complexity of the field usually encompassed by that word) which is magical. Hearing a pin drop, suspension of disbelief, all that. It's great, I love it, it's the tradition in which most of us were raised and it's the bomb. But there are other, equally emotionally effective, ways to do it.
If Ajax/Antigone is "good" (in its own way, not according to some imaginary scale of "goodness" - at the far end of which, I imagine, Mr. Bommer would place a performance of Hamlet watched alone while floating in a sensory deprivation chamber [reductio!]) then maybe people will forget to Twitter and text. Or, maybe, the Twittering and texting will be part of what makes it "good" for some people. I am of the opinion that people are free to try it and see. Mr. Bommer disagrees.
I will say that I don't know whether extending "Tangled Web" to the entire performance run was a good idea (heck, I never knew whether any of it was a good idea, just that it was interesting and worth trying) since, thinking over the themes of both Ajax and Antigone, I find it difficult to imagine how they support Twittering, or how my experience as audience member would be deepened by the presence of social networking during either of these shows... I mean, maybe some vague ideas about the power of gossip, or communication in general... well, I'll find out when I see the show. If the play was not originally conceived to support the ideas raised by "Tangled Web," which was itself originally conceived as a marketing strategy and so could have been a relatively late conceptual addition to the process, then it seems to me very likely that the two (the performance and Web) won't have enough to do with each other and I will be disappointed.
But that's not the point! The point is I can easily imagine a play in which the audience's attention was divided by the behavior of other audience members and the play was interesting and emotionally resonant. For example, I saw "Long Red Road" yesterday. Oh man, was it good. It was built in thrust, with some audience members right up in the action. My friend was splashed in the face by water from the sink. Another couple was so close to the action that on occasion I could not pull my eyes from their faces, being affected by what they were seeing. I talked to them at intermission, asking how they liked it (they loved it) because I didn't want to think my own experience was being heightened at the expense of someone else's. The point being, any time I was watching another audience member reacting to something onstage I was never engaged in the process of fooling myself into thinking what was happening onstage was real - but it was still a wonderful, emotional moment, and it made the whole performance event "better."
Mr. Bommer, there's one thing I don't understand, and I wish you would please, finally, answer this question: why do you assume that asking the audience to share their thoughts and pictures about the show will lead to all the worst-case scenarios you cite? Why does it, in your mind, lead to people playing games or talking on the phone or shopping on eBay? Or firing six-shooters in the air while deploying sarin gas?
This, as I understand it, is the straw man/slippery slope that your argument rests on. Why do you assume the worst of the audience? Why would someone who pays good money for a ticket ignore the spirit of The State's invitation and completely ignore the show?
I eagerly, respectfully, await your thoughtful response.
First, a thoughtful response to Mr. Campion, who still doesn't get it: As sure as spring, he objects to defining anything because it then restricts what it can mean. I'm sorry that talking about the heart leaves out the lungs but some restrictions are required (which is what the texters refuse to realize).
Actually, I refuse to define the audience experience at all rather than limit its possibilities. That's why I concentrate on its core reality--which is make-believe, pure (but not never simple). We make ourselves believe that what we're seeing is for the moment real. That is human nature--from children enthralled by bedtime stories to adults wanting to be taken by tales before we enter the ultimate sleep of death. Human nature by its definition changes far less than theatrical styles and stories. It's much less mutable. Mr. Campion, however, won't see how it's all the same, whether in Thailand, Chicago, Elizabethan England or ancient Greece. "The play's the thing." The audience effaces itself before the illusion, the spell we DON'T want broken. This is not about you--not until you leave the theater, transformed. Until then it's about the actors telling a story that's all about the author who's showing us a different way to be human and a new appreciation of what's real. (And texting is just not that real--sorry, all you twitterers in your bored and boring world...)
This where I provide an equally thoughtful answer to Ms. Sam Reynolds. I don't assume the worst of the audience or of the play. Far from it. I expect the best, not the worst. It's State Theatre that does, by not assuming its play can hold our interest. Please--"asking the audience to share thoughts and pictures about the show" is not holding its interest--it's distracting it to something that at best is only relevant AFTER the show. If the play is bad, State Theatre is doing its crowd a favor by allowing them to stare at a small bright rectangular screen than at the stage. But if that isn't a confession of artistic failure, what is?
I really appreciate Mr. Campion conceding that the subject matter of AJAX/ANTIGONE does not lend itself to networking. That's a great step forward to the discovery that no subject of any play lends itself to networking. Why? Because networking is what you do in the lobby, folks, before the show, during the intermission and maybe during the post-show discussion. During the play, however, YOU MAKE BELIEVE. Children do it all the time--without holding on to a cellphone for dear life, either. We can do it, we can pretend ourselves into a passion--unless our technology has made us so pathetically unimaginative with such piss-poor attention spans that we can't sit in the dark and imagine that Ajax and Antigone are caught up in similar fates across two myths. Apparently State Theatre thinks we can't. I'm betting we're better than they think we are. Why don't you take up my bet? You CAN make belief and it's a lot easier than posting on Facebook, friends...
Mr. Bommer, if you're claiming that all theatrical performance requires the audience to pretend that what they are watching onstage is real... I won't present any more evidence showing that you are wrong, but you are wrong.
"it's all the same, whether in Thailand, Chicago, Elizabethan England or ancient Greece."
Well, I guess I just have to disagree. Based on the evidence I've seen, and my own experience, I think you're wrong about this. Maybe we've finally found the core of our disagreement. I think there are other, equally effective and powerful things to be done with performance; you refuse to acknowledge even the existence of these other, sometimes complimentary, goals (and their results in the audience). Fair enough, though I do think the massive weight of the evidence is against you.
"[ACampion] objects to defining anything because it then restricts what it can mean. I'm sorry that talking about the heart leaves out the lungs but some restrictions are required (which is what the texters refuse to realize). "
I'm honestly not sure what you mean by this, but if you're indicating my insistence that there are other things do be done onstage which are equally legitimate and powerful - and that those things are still, properly, called "theatre" - then I acknowledge. You seem to want "theatre" to refer only to a very narrow conception of naturalistic storytelling (though your glowing reviews of musicals and other non-realistic theatrical styles are bewildering, in that case).
But y'know? All this fancy talk about aesthetics is getting us away from what's really going on here. You want theatre to be like what you think of when you think of theatre. You think that the farther we stray from that ideal the "worse" the show will be. That doesn't include pulling out a cell phone, so you object to that. That doesn't include the audience yelling and not paying attention, so you edit that out of your understanding of Elizabethan England. I made this point before, but: doing something unusual with a piece of theatre doesn't RUIN the "ORIGINAL;" it makes it something new.
"That's a great step forward to the discovery that no subject of any play lends itself to networking."
I'm actually thinking through some shows I've seen and I can come up with several which would be very interesting to try this on. "Valparaiso" would be very cool. Heck, what about "Mystery of Edwin Drood?" Talk about a play that never pretends it's actually real... you could post on a forum about who you think is guilty! Fun. Would it be a different experience? Absolutely. Are other experiences possible, and fun, and satisfying, in theatre? I think we all know they are. And it's confusing that you deny it, Mr. Bommer.
To Justin Hayford..... Thanks for remembering me....... I live in Hollywood now and am still in action! ha ha ha
Justin Hayford..... thanks for remembering...... I am in Hollywood and still in action...........
You didn't answer my question.
You've repeatedly made the claim that asking folks to share elements of the show with their devices will lead to people reading kindles, shopping online, playing games, talking on the phone, etc. etc...
That *is* assuming the worst of the audience. To pretend otherwise just isn't true.
