Search online, a "Multimedia Theatre Production" and find a YouTube clip taken from the piece. Watch it and reflect on the following question:
"Within a Theatre production, how does the use of multimedia help in its communication to an audience? What does it add to the piece?"
The production I have decided to reflect on is a piece called "Selfie" which was performed at the National Theatre. The multimedia used was a variety of sound effects, music, lighting and a projector. The sound effects were used to help communicate to the audience as they enhanced certain points of the play- for example a key scene where the protagonist gets into a very emotional, angry state, she starts to throw objects around the stage. The sound effects are used to enhance the crashing and smashing of these objects, which is effective as it allows the actors anger to be intensified for the audience through the loud, violent sound effects. The music used also help to communicate with the audience as it was used for transitions. As a scene was coming to an end, an actor on stage would start to sing, and then a backing track would come in and the lights would start to strobe, and then the next scene would quickly come into place. This would only happen when a 'party' scene was about to begin, so the use of music and lights combined helped to communicate to the audience that there was about to be a dramatic shift in scenes. The juxtaposition between the party scenes and the other scenes was demonstrated by the use of multimedia within the performance. Furthermore, throughout the play a projector was used to portray images that were suitable for certain scenes. At the start of the play, the character picked up her Ipad, and as she clicked on a photo of herself, the photo came up on the projector that was visible for the whole audience to see. What I thought was extremely clever was as the play went on, we see character development with the protagonist; at first she is a favorite, relatable character, but she eventually becomes an unlikable, spiteful character. As we see this happening, the image on the screen (that is ever-present throughout the play) starts off as a beautiful photo of the protagonist, but eventually ends up as a twisted, distorted image of the character by the end of the play. I loved the use of the projector as it communicated to the audience in a visual sense just how much the protagonist had changed and developed into something unlikable throughout the play.
In total, I think
that Multimedia adds to performances as it enhances important aspects, whilst
allowing the audience to have their own interpretation of the piece as well. In
‘Selfie’ the Multimedia was fantastic to demonstrate juxtaposition, to enhance
certain aspects of the play, and to show a visual representation of character
development.
Additional work:
Find a review of a multimedia theatre production and see what Theatre critics have to say.
In the holiday's I went to see the play The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime. The play was rich in utilizing Multimedia, so i have decided to look at what a theatre critic has to say about it.
"Simon Stephens has done an expert job of translating Haddon’s writing into absorbing theatre. Instead of slavishly reproducing the book’s detail, he captures its spirit with silvery fluency. And while the depiction of Asperges syndrome is sensitive, it’s not the whole story."
"The complexities and peculiarities of his worldview are expressed through Bunny Christie’s magical design. Evoking the strange algebra of Christopher’s thought processes, it allows us to see him as if from the inside. The walls are his personal storage cabinets, yet as the set is spattered with imagery it comes to resemble a genius’s laboratory.
Confronting the chaos of daily life, he is troubled by sounds, metaphors and unfriendly colors." - Henry Hitching's
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