Thor's blog

You Can't Un-Ringtone The Bell

Thor — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 20:26:02 +0000

The Playgoer, probably one of the first and certainly one of the best New York theater bloggers, has posted some thoughts about the increasing disrption of live theater by cellphones. He recounts a particularly obtrustive incident during a performance of The Pillowman, and muses…

Question: when house managers and stage managers have been turned into librarians...is it time to consider the death of audience silence in the theatre? The kind of play that audiences watch in the dark in enforced silence--with the reverence due to a work of art, as opposed to the communal enjoyment of a public spectacle--has only been around 150 years or so. A blip--an anomalous one at that--in the arc of theatre history.

I, Thor, mighty mascot and standard-bearer of NHTC, am told of a similar story by one of our members, for whom the most recent Broadway revival of Long Day's Journey was spoiled when a cellphone pierced and deflated the incredible silence during Vanessa Redgrave's climactic speech: "And then I met James Tyrone, and I was very happy…" *riiiing* "…for a time." I am told that the air instantly became thick with the audience's fury.

The issue cuts two ways. On the one hand: The theater is a heightened and revered space because we go there to hear the truth (even if we usually end up hearing something less). Who are these jerks who are so self-important—and whose lack of consideration for their fellow audience is so thoroughgoing—that they cannot disconnect from the grid for two hours? (OK, 3.5… it is an O'Neill play.) We've all had cell phones for too long now—there's no excuse to forget to turn them off in the theater. It means you think you're more important than the communal experience unfolding.

On the other hand, and more to The Palaygoer's point, cellphones are not going anywhere and theater artists will adapt or die. Nowhere is it written in stone that the theater has to be conducted in an atmosphere of crypt-like silence.

We are a theater company with serious revolutionary artistic ambitions, but one reason we have focused so much on our comedy programs is the way the circumstances of the performance (these days in New Haven's BAR) force us to engage with the audience and the dynamic of their attention and inattention. They talk. They flirt. They hit on one another. They get up and go to the bar. The come back in and need to understand what's going on. And, yes, their cell phones ring. One of our performers once answered an audience cell phone onstage.

Working under these conditions gives us insights that we apply to more traditional-seeming theater work, like Commedia Kitchen or Meter Theater, where the backdrop of New Haven's downtown streetscape gave us—depending on how you look at it—either a panoply of distractions or a rich and rewarding bazaar of opportunities for spontaneous theater.

One Small Step for the Revolution

Thor — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 03:53:43 +0000

The good people of NHTC have decided that I, Thor, the buff and brooding icon of their theatrical revolution, should begin to blog about my thoughts on the theater. I would like to begin by thanking them for the opportunity.

Starting a theater company today is much like starting a revolution. You do it because you believe there is a better way. You do it because you believe the “old ways” do not serve your interests or the greater community and its interests. You do it to breakdown the conventional walls and to open up possibilities. That is why I was called upon, and with my mighty hammer, I smash traditional forms of theatre.

There was a time, my friends, a peaceful and wondrous time in theater, before the age of The Mighty Broadway. It was a time when community, regional and national theater lived in harmony. This was before the power of the Tony Award. And now, the American Theater is the only form of entertainment and/or art in the world that considers only a small collection of work for it’s top honor. Original and amazing professional and amateur productions are created and presented every year in this country, and they will never be considered for Best Play or Best Musical, simply because they were presented within the Broadway Box. And so the power of Broadway, with it’s Tony Award winning money, has begun to control the once independent and daring regional theaters. There are many factors involved here and I would like to point out this blog post that explains it better than I can.

So you ask me, Thor, what can I do about this? Should we all boycott Broadway? No, theater artists work on all levels and should be supported the same way. So, I would suggest that for every Broadway show you see, go and see a regional and local theater production. Your revolutionary support will be greatly appreciated.

A good year for a revolution

Thor — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 19:49:30 +0000

It's simple actually. Start by asking yourself, why does it have to be this way? This is a basic question we ask here at NHTC. Why do we have to follow along with other people's ideas of what theater and art have to be?

If you want to write a play, then write it, and produce it, and when someone says (and they will), "You can't do it that way!" or "That's not theater!". Ask why?

If you want to be an actor, then be an actor. If you want to create theater, then by all means create theater. And when the others say you can't, ask why? Ask who put them in charge? Ask when did they become the owners of all theater? If you want to tell your story, then tell it, and tell it the way you want to tell it. It is a good year for a revolution.