Theatre and Media

Theatre and Media by Aronson
It’s a reality that many and most things cannot be translated on to the stage, a lot of media and projections don’t look the same, don’t have the same effect on stage than on film or otherwise.
Aronson says that this is because of the signified and the signifier. We are constantly decoding image and text with our eyes and our ideologies. Some people don’t have the vast knowledge of socio-cultural decoding abilities that other do. Other may be more adaptable to more naturalistic viewings. The stage is the only place where this can be totally engaged, where an illusion can be portrayed as just that, where the words can be portrayed through image. The narrative comes alive into an image, and without complications we see the story. So why do we need complicated media and projections?
Like theatre, we are a product of our environment and our time and space. We see the actors in that space, and we too become involved. We notice the scale of the environment to our own; the theatre is now a basis for scale of its own environment, a type of architecture. Architecture of illusion. But the projection is an illusion too, so when we see that it interrupts the environment of the stage and the actors. Media challenges the “special reality” of the stage. He says that they “clash” with the set and the time in which the projections come in.
Now don’t get me wrong, I think abstract work on stage with projections that have been thought out and done carefully with purpose can work on stage, but otherwise, I think doesn’t work well. I think the place for multimedia is film. Film allows the framework to be manipulated and the spectator eyes to follow wherever the action takes place. Theatre is more like a painting, as Aronson says, our eyes follows patterns and colors in side the frame, in film we are taken outside of that. Film allow actions to take place outside of the frame, actors to leave and come back, change place faster that on stage. With mass reproduction and representation lots more can be made from film, but the authenticity is lost, that is grounded in the theatre and the environment in which it is based.


See ya next time!

Kira Shaw