Saturday, October 16, 2010

Enjoy the (slide)show!

I've added a slideshow of some pictures from our 2010 Summer Season on the sidebar.  These are from our Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet photocalls.  Unfortunately, no pictures from As You Like It yet, but I will upload some more soon.  I'm also hoping to upload a trailer from our production of Richard III which we performed in January, 2010.

I just sat and watched these forty-some pictures scroll through randomly on the slideshow, and I was immediately taken back to this summer: all the anxiety of putting up these three productions but also the joy of working with such an amazing group of people, the immense pride in what we accomplished, the sense of camaraderie and community we were forming with our audience.  All this from a few pictures!

This semester, I'm trying to dig into some literature about "authenticity" and figure out what that means.  Can you sense authenticity in a picture?  In a video?  How does it differ from the feeling you get when you're present in the theatre?  How does it differ depending on which side of the stage you're on?  I sense genuine feeling in these pictures... is it only because I was there?  Or is there some sort of definition or criteria I can use to determine if something is authentic?

3 comments:

  1. I wish I had more time to form a comprehensive answer to your series of questions, but at the moment I do not. I thought I'd jump in just to point out one thing I thought deserved pointing out.

    For the folks who were not there to see their origin, it seems to me worth noting that these photos are untouched, the actors unadorned, the venues unburdened by technology. The drama of each moment captured in these photographs is not manipulated by designed lighting or elaborate staging. For its dramaticism, each moment relies only on the raw materials -- emotional investment, meticulous attention, and personal craft -- brought to it by the actors involved. Their backdrops are stone, earth, and sky. They are lit by the sun.

    This is not to say that only such images, such moments, such venues, or such actors may be authentic. But perhaps it is simpler to find authenticity when one is not struggling to hide inside artifice.

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  2. Sounds like the Quality question from Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

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  3. Lesley, I don't think I've read that since Dr. Schlecht's philosophy class and I don't have my copy here in the city. Can you post a little more about that?

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