It was a heart-in-mouth moment where technology could have derailed the show. Opening night of Live at Six at Downstage and Barnaby Fredric is on stage playing newsman Fraser Higginson, who is furiously live editing a news bulletin that’s about to go to air. Only, there’s something wrong with the video’s sound - an error that’s in no way scripted. Thinking quickly, Fredric emails the required file to AV technician Hamish Guthrey sitting in the wings, who syncs up the broken audio and video for Higginson to play as normal – in the nick of time. It was a neat piece of improvisation that the audience was oblivious to, but which epitomised the pressures of live TV explored in the play.
Live at Six, described by its producers as “a black comedy for the social media age that will change the way you watch the news,” was developed as a STAB project at Wellington’s BATS Theatre and updated for its 2012 season to account for changing technology. The play has been incredibly well-received, with Theatreview critic John Smythe lauding it as a “production that, for all its technology and dynamic interactivity, never loses sight of the human story”. While the theatre hit Apollo 13 engaged audience members by seating them behind the chunky computer console panels of 1960s-era NASA ground control, the technology also never overtook the story.
PAGE 9: Arthur Meek in his play Richard Meros Salutes the Southern Man, BATS Theatre
More experimental is I Sing the Body Electric developed by Free Theatre Christchurch in conjunction with the University of Canterbury’s HIT Lab, an R&D facility working on augmented reality, 3D and cutting age computer interaction. RIGHT: Jess Robinson in Live at Six by Dean Hewison and Leon Wadham, Cuba Creative, Downstage. Image: Philip Merry
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Peter Griffin on issues and opportunities for theatre in the digital age
It also said a lot about the risks and rewards of building technology into the workings of a play, one where audience members were invited to shoot video clips of the play’s inciting incident on their phone and email it to the producers to be edited into the show’s bulletin on stage.
Perhaps more than any other to debut recently in a New Zealand theatre, I Sing the Body Electric attempts to sum up society’s intensifying obsession with technology, but as a retelling of a Don Juan legend. Despite the increasing pervasiveness of technology in our lives and the tools available to those making theatre, such productions remain the exception to the theatre rule. There may be a good reason for that. “Look at horror movies,” says playwright and actor Arthur Meek. “One of the first things they establish in a horror movie is that everyone is out of cellphone range.”
“It can kill theatre, it kills the story. I find that when you insert technology you can really clutter the experience for people.” That didn’t stop Meek from employing a more subtle use of technology in developing his own play Richard Meros Salutes the Southern Man, which The Dominion Post’s Laurie Atkinson described as “a slick and funny PowerPoint lecture”. “But there’s never a sense that the show stops and everyone has to start watching a video,” says Meek. Wellington playwright Gavin McGibbon considers himself a writer of ‘character-driven’ plays, so only sees room for technology if it “reflects or shows character.” “To me it’s like having a magician on stage doing their tricks, right there in front of your eyes, and then suddenly you go to watching them do a trick on a screen. It just feels flat and suddenly lifeless.” But he admits that with people increasingly expressing themselves via social media, the medium is potentially useful as a tool to flesh out characters. “Facebook and Twitter could be things I use in future work because they actually speak volumes about the characters instantly.” Playmarket Director Murray Lynch says many scripts now come across his desk with references to social media, the internet and new technology, particularly from younger writers. But he sees the bigger impact of the increasingly pervasive digital world being on the production and marketing of plays and new opportunities the internet offers to connect with potential theatre-goers. Lynch sees the internet as increasingly important in generating inquiries to stage the work of its writers. Upwards of 50 licence sales a year are generated from overseas theatre companies, some of which are discovering work via downloads, Youtube clips, online reviews of plays or the general digital buzz created by successful productions. Playmarket’s communications coordinator, Aneta Ruth, says a lot more online content is being created to market plays. “No longer is it enough to put a link on Facebook to your booking page. You have to have photos, videos, interviews with the cast and writers.” Auckland playwright Gary Henderson went so far as to learn HTML coding and web development skills to personally maintain his online presence. His interest in the web as a tool for playwrights largely stems from his work as a drama teacher, first at the University of Otago and then Unitec, where he used the open source software platforms
“You’ve tagged me in like some really ugly photos before. And it’s not like I can delete them” Flash / Kate Morris PLAYMARKET ANNUAL 2012 : NO. 47 : 6