Old Plays, New Narratives (original) (raw)
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Old Plays, New Narratives: Fan Production of New Media Texts from Broadcast Theatre
Interactive film and media journal, 2014
When a theatrical performance is digitally broadcast live to cinemas, the limitations of temporal and spatial specificity are removed and the theatrical experience is simultaneously opened up to a wider audience and inherently altered. One such production, Coriolanus (Donmar Warehouse, 2013-14), starring an actor with a particularly enthusiastic online fan community, was broadcast to cinemas by National Theatre Live where fans recorded it on digital devices, extracted clips and produced animated gifs, which they captioned to reinterpret the play, sharing them online, removed from their original context. The transformation of theatre texts to cinemas to social media platforms raises exciting questions related to how fans interact with culture both as consumers and as producers of new media texts. How do the different transformations (technical and actively fan-produced) affect both the narrative and the cultural experience? How do new texts function as surrogates for, and extensions of, the 'official' narrative, as well as new interactive narratives in their own right? This paper addresses these questions in the context of as specific theatrical event as it crossed the boundary from a live, co-located experience into first cinema, then interactive hypertexts and memes. Drawing on theories of fandom and participatory culture, as well as post Web 2.0 analysis of Internet behaviours, the paper examines fan production of new media texts and how they both transmit and transform the source narrative via interpretation, re-interpretation, and misinterpretation. BROADCAST theatre as a transmedia narrative When a live event is filmed and broadcast to remote audiences, the very nature of the cultural experience is changed. In the case of National Theatre Live (NT Live), the process of filming a play and its transmission via satellite to multiple cinemas is sometimes described in terms of 'stage to screen' or as a conversion from a theatrical brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
Theatre Dispositif and the Challenge of Covid-19: Mediatisation, Liveness and Audiences
Mediascapes Journal, 2020
The COVID-19 emergency has had a profound impact on the artistic and cultural sectors, and on performing arts in particular. The lockdown required the suspension of all live performances and rehearsals, including the cancellation of seasons and festivals. Because physical proximity is an essential component of live shows, this sector will be on pause longer than the others. Since the early stages of the lockdown, Italian theatre has developed several online initiatives to counterbalance the suspension of its activities. These efforts have aimed at maintaining contact with the remote theatre audiences, by extending the presence of artists, theatres and performances in the online context. However, they have also provided an opportunity to reflect at large on the digital transformations of performing arts. The following contribution reflects on how we are researching the online response of the theatrical sector from the perspective of sociology and media studies. The paper aims to contextualise the phenomenon within the processes of theatre mediatisation and digital transformation of liveness, and to present what we think are the most urgent research questions in this direction. The first part of the article introduces the theoretical premises of the investigation. We present the frame of theatre mediatisation by analysing three interrelated processes: the mediatisation of dramaturgy through the concept of transmedia; the mediatisation of theatrical presence, with the debate on digital liveness, and the mediatisation of the theatrical relationship through social media. The second part will analyse some of the main online initiatives of the theatre sector, observing how they fit into the previously introduced mediatisation processes. The third part will observe how users have responded to the initiatives presented on social media by some of the main Italian theatres. In the conclusions, we will discuss which research questions we consider crucial to connect the analysis of this critical moment to the main themes of sociological and media studies research on performing arts.
Making Community in the Age of Migration: What Is the Role of Social Media in Contemporary Theatre
2020
Making Community in the Age of Migration: What is the role of Social Media in Contemporary Theatre? The use of technology in making theatre is certainly nothing new. With the rapid tech advances in recent years, it's now unusual to attend a production that doesn't incorporate various types of projections, special lighting effects, extra-diegetic sound elements, or other trendy tech aspects as part of the audience experience. Given the plethora of technologies, both on our stages and in our lives, this paper will explore, through a close examination of the use of media in Robert Lepage's 2018 production of Coriolanus, how the 'social' aspect of social media brings us together (if it does), and what happens to our notion of community in a time of massive migrations resulting from the proliferation of social upheaval and unrest. What, in other words, does staging our relationship to social media, through narratives that reflect contemporary conditions and relations, do to mark our interconnectedness in a world that feels more and more the disconnections of a trash fire? I was initially struck by the idea of these connections/disconnections through media, and in particular social media, while attending a performance of Robert Lepage's 2018 modern dress production of Coriolanus at the Stratford Festival. The connections between Shakespeare's last Roman play and the sense of political betrayal and distrust in the contemporary world are exceptionally clear, and Lepage is only the latest
Pamiętnik Teatralny
The Covid-19 pandemic plunged many theaters around the world into a temporary crisis and favored the rise of digital theater forms. This article investigates how the reception of theater changes in the digital space and, above all, how audiences as a social dimension of theatrical performances must first be constituted separately there. Based on performance analysis of the digital theater productions Homecoming and Sterben from Germany, the significance of the digital infrastructure for the assembly, performance, and action repertoires of these theater audiences is discussed. The author examines how audiences can be formed into different temporal communities in the digital space. These temporal communities are characterized by hybridity and have the potential to enable intense theatrical encounters across spatial boundaries.
The Changing Position of the Theatergoer in the Changing Space of Online Performances
Zeszyty Prasoznawcze
During the last year we all were banned to participate in our everyday life using online transmission, homework, homeschool and different digital tools. But with all this we also gained access to cultural or other practices that previously were not part in our everyday life. That resulted in a detailed spectrum of participation from the form of listening-observing to the different levels of giving feedback and taking control (for example putting questions to the other participants or to the crew, taking part in the discussion, pausing or leaving an event). This paper investigates the possibilities of agency given to the participants by the online theater. It starts from personal experiences, but ends in questions regarding the medial nature of this new transmission form: to what extent should digitally transmitted performances, shows be considered theater? And if they are not theater, what are they?
What do Audiences Do? Negotiating the Possible Worlds of Participatory Theatre
Questions around what audiences do are becoming ever more complex as innovative modes of participation are developed in contemporary immersive, interactive and intermedial theatre. Drawing on examples from Uninvited Guests, Void Projects, Punchdrunk, Blast Theory and other contemporary theatre practitioners , this article suggests that new models are needed in order to reason about the experience of the contemporary theatre audience. It proposes that the philosophical framework of Possible Worlds Theory, as used by digital theorists to elucidate the reader's experience of hypertext fiction, can also provide tools and a language which recognise and validate the complexities of spectatorial practices in participatory theatre. The article uses digital theory and several applications of Possible Worlds Theory to reveal some implications of active spectating as it explores what it means to manoeuvre between successive states of immersion and interaction through an aesthetic process.
"Cut me to pieces" Shakespeare, fandom, and the fractured narrative
Proceedings of the Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts Conference, 2015
This paper considers the tensions and interactions between a classic play, its modern staging and live broadcast, and its playful reinterpretation by fans via social media platforms such as Tumblr. In the context of cultural theory and organizational policy, the live broadcast of Shakespeare's Coriolanus is shown to be a complex, fractured, transmedial cultural experience with significant implications for its live theatrical and broadcast audiences, as well as online audiences drawn from the fan base of its lead actor. Examples of fan production are shown to extend and reinterpret the core narrative, further fracturing the narrative across unofficial platforms and creating new, interactive cultural experiences.
Live theatre in the age of digital technology: ‘Digital habitus’ and the youth live theatre audience
This article applies Bourdieu’s notion of habitus to the results of a two-year qualitative study of high school students’ responses to live theatre. ‘Digital habitus’ sheds light upon the ways in which teenagers more accustomed to ‘networked publics’ (boyd and Marwick 2011) respond to live performance and provides a way to understand students’ embodiment of digital culture during these ‘uncertain times for audience research’ (Couldry 2014 p. 226) . Through the voices of student theatregoers the article proposes three findings that point to how learning to recognize, understand and negotiate the digital habitus is an important task for audience researchers, educators and theatre administrators keen to ‘build bridges’ (Hosenfeld 1999) between the ‘dispositions’ (Bourdieu, 1990) of the smartphone-toting teenager and the stage.
On theatre mediatisation: exploring transmediality in Aldo Morto 54
This paper explores the process of theatre mediatisation by analysing the Italian case study of Aldo Morto 54 by Compagnia Frosini/Timpano. Through a review of the recent literature on the topic, we propose to show how the conceptual framework developed in mediatisation studies can provide a useful contribution to the field of theatre/performance studies. The paper will look at three areas of theatre mediatisation: the mediatisation of dramaturgy through the concept of transmedia; the mediatisation of theatrical presence, with the debate on digital liveness, and the mediatisation of the theatrical relationship through social media. In describing the transmedia project Aldo Morto 54, we will observe the mediatisation process in the field of theatre by looking at a digital extension of a theatre performance and at the way the online audience responded to the project.
Tweetre: What role can technology play in contemporary theatre?
2017
This article is a brief, individual review which illustrates some advances that digital technology can foster for theatre. Whether this can be seen as an encroachment or augmentation in this field, there are clear examples of significant opportunities for practitioners who follow the digital route as a means to increase theatrical participation. Concurrent to this, this article will demonstrate the validity of using the principles of game design to consider the potentials offered by digital theatre and indicate possible avenues for future research.