*blinks* TheatreMuse??

[changeling]

I'd really like to do a production where stagehands are part of the performance. People in black do everything usually done with trickery--if someone needs to fly, a stagehand lifts them (cf ballet) rather than using wires. A sign comes down from the flies? Nope. Stagehand carries it across the stage.

That would rock.

Comments

[mattador.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a very, very interesting idea. <3 playing around with dropping the fourth wall.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

*nods enthusiastically* As well as paying homage to my ballet heritage, of course. Now I just have to think of a play to do (or write one, I suppose)

[mattador.livejournal.com]

There's always Peter Pan, lots of flying there, and it could be done very well ballet-style.

Of course, I am saying this mainly because I dreamed I was Peter Pan last night.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

*nods* That could rock. Am currently thinking of perhaps a Greek play (particularly as friend is planning Medea for next year - could be double bill!), & you could replace the Deus ex Machina.
...guess the rest of the Hellenic plays are pretty static, though, not really allowing for too much playing with set &c though, so maybe not.

[mattador.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Would Orestes work? I seem to recall some pretty out-there stuff in it, but i may have just seen an odd production?

[chn-breathmint.livejournal.com]

In some Japanese puppet shows the puppeteers wear black, and are ignored by theatrical convention.

- Mel

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

*nods* Have seen that in puppet shows here, too.

[melusinehr.livejournal.com]

There's a company in New York I've worked with a few times that does stuff like that--the director just takes classic plays (Shakespeare, Chekov, etc.) and puts his own wacky spin on them, one part of which includes seeing the stagehands moving everything around and occasionally having "spear-carrier" type lines. Doesn't always work, though I think that has more do to with the other stuff he adds.

I think it worked best unintentionally, in a production of King Lear, where just before the final performance the woman (yeah) playing Edgar broke her ankle and couldn't go on. The assistant stage manager, who had a lot of stuff to do onstage, ended up having to read her lines, and the play suddenly had this added level of Edgar manipulating everything and everyone onstage. 'Twas very creepy.

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

re: King Lear.
OOOOH. ROCKAGE. I love that sort of extra meaning added to a play!

[notfudge.livejournal.com]

cool.
(tired. no more words.)

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

There's a Pepsi ad on TV over here (UK) which does something like that - two people are staging a generic martials arts-style fight, and black-clad stagehands move objects and fighters around as required. In one move, one of the fighters "extends" his arm - by means of a stagehand all in black except for a sleeve matching the orange top of the fighter - to grab the can from his opponent. At the end one of the stagehands wins the can and drinks it ...

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

That sounds like it's based on the ping pong game video circulating on the net.

[buhfly.livejournal.com]

*ponders* That sounds vaguely familiar. As if I've heard a similar idea before.

But not EXACTLY the same. Because I've never heard anyone come up with the ballet-lifting before. *luffles*

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

*Pleased* Steph and I discussed it, and we also talked about these little boxes on wheels that would have the set inside them...now we just need a play. *laughs*

Maybe I should write one. ;)

[buhfly.livejournal.com]

You should.