Making Community in the Age of Migration: What Is the Role of Social Media in Contemporary Theatre (original) (raw)

Abstract

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

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References (7)

  1. Carver, Terrell. "Shakespeare's Coriolanus (1608) and Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852): The Constitutional is the Personal". Shakespeare, 14:2, 174 -189, DOI: 10.1080/17450918.2018.1455738 (2018).
  2. Chatzichristodoulou, Maria. "Introduction to Encountering the Digital in Performance: Employment, Engagement, Trace". Contemporary Theatre Review. 27.3, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2017.1343248
  3. Fricker, Karen. "Shakespeare's Coriolanus brought to the present at Stratford". Toronto Star: June 24, 2018. https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/stage/review/2018/06/24/shake speares-coriolanus-brought-to-the-present-at-stratford.html
  4. Nancy, Jean-Luc. The Inoperative Community. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 1991. https://monoskop.org/images/5/56/Nancy\_Jean- Luc_The_Inoperative_Community.pdf
  5. Raspa, Richard. "Place in Shakespeare's Coriolanus: The Intersection of Geography, Culture, and Identity". Mediterranean Studies, 26.2, 2018 DOI: 10.5325/mediterraneanstu.26.2.0213
  6. Stratford Festival. "Director Robert Lepage in Conversation with Literary and Editorial Director David Prosser". https://cdscloud.stratfordfestival.ca/uploadedFiles/Whats\_On/Plays\_and\_Ev ents/Plays/2018/The-Tempest(1)/About_The_Play/COR_0146_- _2018_Accessibility_House_Program_FINAL-s_713855.pdf
  7. i Ralph Fiennes 2011 film version of the play and Tom Hiddleston's 2013 portrayal of the title character in the Donmar Warehouse production are two of the more recent examples of interest in this text.