On Sun, 02 Mar 1997 15:33:12 +0100 Monika Wunderer wrote:
>play is scheduled to last 1 hour (!)
Right!
>transport of audio data is still problematic via the Internetlines
:nods...have a way to insure that the performance can go on in this event.
>so I would suggest to have as less dialogs as possible (what a silly
>sentence but I am sure that you understand me)
:nods
>You have to know that I am a purist :-) which means that I always vote for
>clear, simple, plain ....whatever way to express and show things.
Right, the idea is to make this performance as powerful as possible and not
to impress with a blizzard of verbiage.
>I do not know yet how we can tell a story by our reduced means of directing
>AND by reduced use of dialogs. Part of our process will be I fear that we
>have to think of an preinformed audience (like greek audience was !) ->
>people that have and idea of what happened at island of polyphem, they
>already heard or read about it ....
This is part of what I meant by tying all of the disparate elements
together. As I get into the intricate details of this project I am
starting to see its strengths and weaknesses with greater clarity. It is
not only the story that has to be communicated but also the new ideas that
encompass it, the global network of stages, the web audience, the sensors,
the light cones, the choros. If these can be incorporated and explained in
the course of the performance it would be much more effective than relying
on or trying to educate the audience beforehand. Plus, if it is done right
it could greatly increase the dramatic impact. This is what I am working
on now and there is no doubt it is a very difficult challenge but I think I
have made a good deal of progress in this regard.
>I just wanted to bring this problematic in here because I know that you,
>Lee are working a lot with developing the stories through dialogs. - Lee
>has a great way of drawing a picture of relationship between the
>protagonists, through their way of communicating (I only read some of his
>works, unfortunately never saw it staged yet) -
>so what to do here?
Again, I agree with your earlier comments about less, clear, simple, plain.
The idea is not to rely on dialogue alone but each and every element that
is available.
>Oh, second thing is the use of the mother tongue. So do we expect the
>audience to read the dialogs? I know that we will probably not make it
>without the use of subtitles - the screens - but I am not very fond of this
>idea, because it can easily look like a helpless try to tell our story.
I have been giving this a lot of thought and I agree with what you and the
Vienna group originally thought about performing the dialogue in English.
To do otherwise and use each location's mother language would mean that in
one scene we could have a combination of real and virtual actors speaking
to each other in German, Spanish, and English. While conceptionally this
may be a cute idea I think the novelty would wear off after a few minutes.
Also, this would make our production seem more like the Tower of Babel than
The Odyssey.
With less, clear, and precise language we should be able to communicate via
written text in each location's mother language. Some additional
advantages to this would be that since the dialogue would be spoken in
English we would only need one screen for each location's language. There
would be no need to have English and the mother language shown on the
screens together. This will make things less confusing.
I was thinking that, in addition to the four screens already shown in
Santiago's sketch of Gernot's concept, we could have an additional screen
that would be elevated above the others in which the mother language of
each location will be shown. This will insure that no actors or objects,
smoke, etc., get in the way of the audience's view. It will also free up
the other monitors for other things. In addition, in moments of high
drama, we can use this additional elevated screen to great effect. Think
you will agree when you see some examples.
Also, if each location has a screen in which its mother language is shown
(including the English speaking locations) we should be protected against
the problem you mentioned earlier regarding the transport of audio data.
If the worst were to occur, the performance would obviously lose the
dimension of audio but it would not come to a grinding halt and would still
be understandable to an audience until the situation was hopefully
corrected. Our other options would be to pause in the performance and/or
show the netlag storms. The limitations to these other options would be
the loss of dramatic momentum, continuity, and the fact that if these
problems are chronic the performance could last well over an hour.
>
>Sorry I am drifting away with my thoughts, mixing text questions and
>directing questions. I am just curious of the ideas Lee will bring up !
>(btw. like the next paragraph here:
>
>>To make it as easy on our translators as possible I am trying to retain the
>>poetic quality of The Odyssey while keeping the structure relatively
>>simple. Also, this is the epitome of a multi-media, multi-discipline event
>>so the text will be used as not only a way of telling the story but as a
>>way to tie all of the disparate elements together into a grand entity.
:) Thanks.
>ah, have you found out yet what to do with the gods? or are they not a part
>of the text, are they only to include into direction thoughts?
Regarding the gods, I am planning on incorporating some of your ideas, some
ideas off of the the oudeis-idea list and some new ones, the best of
everything I think.