Sunday, August 28, 2011

Live Theater at Edinburgh Showcase

Two trends has been present in the shows, I have seen at the Edinburgh Showcase 2011 presented by British Council. Both which make the question of why we make and watch live theater present.

Trend 1: shows that rely on new media, often to the degree where the live performers are either almost absent or reduced to pawns in a tightly scripted show.
Trend 2: shows that rely on live performers and the audience, often in a minimalistic set-up, where lights, effects and set are almost absent.

The weakness of trend 1 is that it takes us away from the immediacy and humanity of theater. We as an audience are reduced to pawns, silent consumers of a finished and non-live product. We might admire the cleverness, the effects and the skill of the production, but we are not a part of it.
The strength is that even with a weak idea, such a show, might exactly survive because of the effects and cleverness.

Trend 2-shows have nothing but the idea and the courage of the performers to succeed by. So even with a strong idea, if that idea hasn't been pursued with courage, analysis and imagination, the show can easily fall short. The advantage of these shows is the courage and humanity of the performer, which can save a mediocre idea.

To me trend 1-shows are a dead end for live theater. It baffles me to see a live performance, where the performers are not really alive, but puppets in a machinery. I really don't understand why anyone would go about making a live performance and then reduce it to something like a re-enacted film. It's like going to a concert where the singer lip-syncs, where the music is exactly like on the record.

In Teater 770° Celsius where I do my work, we search for the full live-experience of theater, we allow the mistake, the unexpected, to happen and enrich us and audience. I saw a lot of the same pursuit in the trend 2-shows at the showcase, which made me happy even when they didn't entirely succeed in that pursuit.