Clybourne Park and site

A production I think would be cool to place in site-specific circumstances would be a naturalistic show like Clybourne Park. So often in naturalistic pieces such as this one, technical designers try so hard to make the set as realistic as possible. If I were a director, I would do the first act in a nice looking two story house, very suburban-like. It would be cool if most of the other rooms were filled with boxes that contained actual items one would pack on a move, labels and all. Francine would be traveling around packing for most of this act. There would be an actual room where Kenneth's things would be either packed or laid out, some in boxes for charity and others that Bev and Russ would want to keep. When the characters that are not initially in the home arrive, they would drive up in period appropriate clothing and cars and knock on the door. They would have an actual entrance. The audience members could sit in the kitchen or living room or follow characters that they like. They must never touch them. We are taking the experience of "feeling like you're there" to the next level.

The second act would be held in a different neighborhood the next day. This building will be much more open with graffiti on the walls. Walls would be knocked out and everything would generally be in disarray, but it must look like someone once lived there. The audience members could sit with the actors and discuss their views as they hear them spoken from the actors. Who do they really agree with?

I completely agree with Kantor's assessment. As I study these forms more, I see that art can't stay in a box! I've never been to a production like the one I've described above, but I think if I did, I would feel more like a witness instead of a spectator. I would really feel like I was there because I ACTUALLY was!

PERFORMANCE ART? theatre?

As we attempt to put labels and definitions on forms of performance, there will always be the possibility that certain ones will have the capability of falling into more than one category. I definitely can see how the naturalistic, theatrical form and a more evolved, technological form of performance could get very close in similarity; but, I don't think that they will ever be the same or dilute completely into one another, though they may come very close. Speaking first hand as someone who is attempting to produce a solo performance show, I can say that I am taking a more theatrical take to my performance. I speak of the past, I have flashbacks, I speak in verse and prose; but, I am me and the words spoken are my thoughts and I'm making the decision to share them so I suppose I'm present, right? My project is not quite theatre, but it's not quite performance art. It's a little or both.  I took the aspects of each that I felt would most compel an audience and, in good mastrabatory fashion, would compel myself. I see many solo performance artists taking the same approach to their work. They don't confine it to a form. They just do what they want.


In regards to media filters and imagined memory, I think that the form of media that most affects our worldly experience is video. Take this article/video, for example. 

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tasered-passenger-my-civil-rights-were-just-thrown-out-window-n219916

An Indiana man tells his side of the story and claims that police used excessive force when they broke his car window and tased him. His son got the whole thing on camera. The man's attorney, states in the article, "Thank goodness Joseph took the video, because the video stands for itself that these officers engaged in excessive force." However, this video only shows one fraction of the entire exchange, but after seeing the video, I can't help but be impacted by it. How can occurrences, such as these impact the theatrical experience? Well, for one thing, they become the basis for our recollection of that particular experience, particularly if we have nothing else to go off of, but someone's word.  They may have words, but the other side may have words AND video and that will always make more impact.  A video could be the representation of not just an entire experience, but an entire era.