365 Plays/365 Days - Week 52
Posted by Brant Russell on 11/05/2007They’re here.
Steppenwolf concludes the national phenomenon 365 Plays/365 Days this week with seven digital plays. Though over 700 companies have participated in the festival, only a handful has produced artistic output that exists solely in the digital world.
About nine months ago, when Steppenwolf charged me with finding six other artists to create digital plays from Suzan-Lori Parks‘ scripts, I sought a collective from wide variety of disciplines. I already had two ringers: actor, improviser, and Steppenwolf web guru Dave Urlakis and aesthetic maven Jay Geneske were ready to jump on board. I then enlisted Steppenwolf Associate Artist Jessica Thebus, who in turn solicited the help of video designer Stephan Mazurek and Steppenwolf lighting designer JR Lederle. Finally, I recruited photographer Saverio Truglia, digital artist Galina Shevchekno, and actor and filmmaker Sam Porretta. When you watch our seven pieces, you will see the work of more than 25 artists.
These plays will probably be unlike any other theater pieces you’ve seen. But presenting these works in this digital format begs the question: are they actually plays?
As you watch them, you won’t be gathered in a darkened theater with other theater-goers. If you need to go to the bathroom or get some candy, you can just take a break between plays. There is no degree of verisimilitude: a chair is not used to represent a chair; a chair is represented by a collection of pixels directed in color and shape to look like a chair. There is no possibility for improvisation, error or variation: each piece will be more or less the same every time you watch it (though some of these pieces defy that rule - keep an eye out).
But keep in mind that they are the product of the same core principle that drives any Steppenwolf production: collaboration. Though each of these pieces could have been made by a solitary artist before a glowing screen in a dark room, each director reached out to friends and colleagues for help and inspiration. Collaboration is the natural state of theater-making, and so it is with these pieces.
And we will be gathered, more or less, as we would be to watch a traditional play. Though we may not be in the same temporal zone (we’ll be in different places at different times), we will all be looking at essentially the same thing. No two of us will have the same affective experience, but that’s the case with plays on stage as well.
Most importantly, we hope that these plays have the same desired effect of any Steppenwolf production - to get you talking.
November 5th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
congrats on this, Brant! i look forward to seeing what these “digital plays” are like.
November 7th, 2007 at 1:15 am
friggin’ LOVE ‘EM!
i especially liked Nine-Eleven, Talkback, and The Blank Before The World.
good work, people.
November 8th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Thanks, Justin. As a theater artist in this town, and someone who runs your own company, I know you’ve seen your share of these plays.
What do you think worked about the ones you liked? And feel free to discuss pieces that you didn’t like, as well.
I’m curious about what determines “success” in this new form…
November 13th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
whoo boy, Brant! that’s one tall order of a question. hard to answer. i have seen my fair share of the 365 Plays. i’ve directed two (weeks 34, 48), acted in one (week 12), and seen countless others. despite TimeOut Chicago’s greatest efforts to report the contrary, i think these plays all have merit in and of themselves. and by virtue of the fact that they got 52 companies in our city — and 16 others — to get up and play is merit enough. sure, some of the plays hit me in a more meaningful way than others, but that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? WE’RE ALL taking part in them, and it is the community’s responsibility to stand up and say what they dug about them or didn’t. now, to determine success of the Week 52 plays on the basis of their form is really a philosophical issue, isn’t it?:
What is “a play?”
that discussion i’ll leave for another time. for me, what works or doesn’t with these plays — or any plays for that matter — is which ones engage me, which ones make me laugh, make me want to watch them over again, which ones do i find myself thinking about a couple of days later, which ones do i turn to somebody i don’t really know and say “hey, did you just see that?”. for instance, right after i saw the Steppenwolf digital plays i emailed a colleague and said “go watch these Steppenwolf plays right now so we can talk about them”. so, for the sake of the blog, and because you’re my friend Brant, i’ll indulge. sure. i’d love to know what others thought of the these plays, too. here goes:
- Nine-Eleven: i loved how dry a rendering of such a “wet” subject matter it had. it’s rare we’re asked to think about 9/11 devoid of sentiment, and i appreciated that attempt. plus, i think computer voices are oddly effective. to my ear, for some reason, they make words mean different things than human voices.
- Talkback: i’m a playwright. i’m trying to finish a script right now. i laughed like hell. i watched it a second time and laughed even harder. stellar photogenicness by Dave.
- The Blank Before The World: i had to watch it twice to see if i was equally as impressed by the pairing of visual/sound the second time. and i was.
for what it’s worth, i posted a lengthy blog on The Next Theatre’s blogroll back in October (called “She’s Always Got Something Hidden Inside”) about how i found understanding in the week 48 plays; what process i used to get at them. others might find it interesting. also, i posted a blog on the Sandbox Theatre Project blog (called “Won’t You Be My Neighbor”) about how our use of space elucidated the week 34 plays.