Humble Theatre, located in the basement of The Prince Edward public house in W1, was a space not much bigger than the average living room and with no permanent theatrical fixtures. Being worlds away from Euripidesʼ starting point and not much closer to our own, the decision to stage epic Medea there was solely financial. As a creative team we had already determined to adapt and update the text locating the action at the house of a celebrity footballer, in a Russian Embassy and on a helipad. The choice then followed almost instantaneously to create an intermedia production.
The decision to incorporate new media into the production was primarily a directorial artistic one – although the creative restraints of working on such a small budget in a non-theatrical or technically equipped venue did set the scope of experiment, design and integration. In our production, just as Kranich argued film provided the ʻanswer to a smaller theatre lacking the fundsʼ and equipment that was most usually demanded for such an epic text 1.
Designed by Mike Lees the stage set consisted of 6 simple wooden framed flats covered in opaque white (Figure 1). Stretched from floor to ceiling their disposition resembled Becky Gunstoneʼs painted structure for What Fatima Did (Hampstead Theatre, 2009). The flats were placed at various degrees to provide a feeling of depth and to illuminate projections – which combined all other elements of Leesʼ design, aside from costumes and props. The productionʼs lighting, CGI and sound were played off and front projected by a Dell notebook situated at the rear of the auditorium.
After initial group building exercises and source material analysis, technology was brought to the rehearsal room within a few days as an aid to develop the modern dialogue we wished to use. Digital camcorders were set up and the actors were filmed improvising all of the original scenes in modern language. The adapted script to be used in performance was written from sections of the recorded improvisations and further source text study. The use of this technology in rehearsals was paramount to the development of the text and the production. It also gave actors opportunity to engage with the technology that would be enveloping them during performance early on in the development process. This helped to inform their performance as they made key character decisions including vocal tone, bodily structure and in the construction of the charactersʼ emotional palette. It also allowed the creative team to document ongoing performance explorations and experiments.
After the self-reflective use of video in rehearsals the actors had time to build a portrait of their character in a bare space whilst the creative team collaborated on the integration of projected film and pictures. The main purpose of this, aside from the substantial scenographic one (Figure 3 – projected lighting), was to replace and enhance some spoken sections of text and to provide choric commentary on the onstage action. The use of new media in this production supported the performance without extensive interaction between performer and screen. The play would have been coherent, should the projection not have been available, although its flow would be drastically affected.
Alongside sceneographic and choric uses the projection enhanced and enabled various scene and costume changes. It animated the small space and extended the scope of the stage. It provided an opportunity for the audience to see into places that even the most elaborately funded but technically bare theatres could not (Figures 4, 5 and 9).
Simple technology was used to ensure a practical balance between the recorded material and the theatrical action in such a small venue (so as not to create an intermedia spectacle that would have been inappropriate for the space). Split second co-ordination between technician and performer was needed but this did not affect the ʻlivenessʼ of the production and it didnʼt noticeably prevent the actors from investing their performance with an in-the-moment spontaneity as the technical cues were given by themselves. It did however require a rehearsed technician to deliver these quickly and successfully, which directly affected the production budget. Whereas some shows may be electronically programmed and executed by various technicians, our production required numerous cue rehearsals where technician and actor developed a performance relationship and understanding (even though it involved simple technology).
On several occasions projected pictures were used to evoke subjective feeling (Figures 6, 7 and 8). This dramatically enhanced Medeaʼs often lengthy soliloquies which had a direct result in the development of the text: it didnʼt have to be cut.
The virtual performance setting in some scenes did affect the actorsʼ usual relationship with a three-dimensional set and perhaps negatively brought the show back in moments to pre-Appia days. However it did present a dramatic parallel to the collage of post-modern culture in which new media, especially the camera and the screen, surrounds and often dictates. In this, the projection became emblematic of the wider thematic concerns, assuming a metaphorical function which spoke of the role media holds in contemporary culture – as a backdrop to modern society.
Humble Theatreʼs small confined space which was only extended by the use of new media reinforced how the trapped celebrity lives – in a world dictated to, surrounded by, and shaped by the media. This proved an extremely effective method in communicating the overall message of the production which was to question ethical, social and moral boundaries primarily relating to the media, celebrity culture and the topic of abortion (Figure 2 shows an image from our scene 1 – literally the story was covered by the media). Much like the work of Alison Jackson we wished to incite our audience to look afresh at how pictures of ʻrealityʼ are constructed and without the use of new media this wouldnʼt have been possible in the space.
The audience were not deprived of the capacity for active critical thinking; rather the use of new media sparked, encouraged and created space for it. A good example of this was where the narrative was carried further by film in our scene 8. The film here depicted the unborn babies moving around inside Medea. As she watched footage (that she appeared to be playing on a dvd) of an ultrasound scan, the projection rendered the image of the unborn baby directly onto her head, resulting in a kaleidoscope of the live and the mediated. This provoked key questions surrounding the productionʼs themes – questions that would not have been raised so quickly or fluently should the use of new media not have been incorporated at this point.
Figure 5 shows a still image from the film used during the production which documented a real abortion via ultrasound. This introduction of documentary material illustrated the real context of the fictional action and forced the audience to engage on a new level – it added another dimension to the representation which extended beyond the theatre walls. It provided the production with a unique moment of realisation as the audience saw a non-fictional embryo being ripped out of a motherʼs uterus, taking it beyond the theatre and into the real world. This had a successful effect in raising the questions that the production aimed to, and proved considerably more effective than Medea acting out the filicide live on stage.
Negative press reactions are not uncommon for productions that integrate new media or adapt canonical theatrical texts, and our production of Medea attracted a few dissenting reviews. As incorporation of the live and the mediatised becomes increasingly common in the theatre the staunch classicist appears to hang onto the notion that the ordained texts should remain unaltered and unaffected by new media or modern culture. From my point of view the ways new media enhanced the production, described above, far outweighed any classicistsʼ concerns regarding the displacement of Euripidesʼ intention. From my directorial position the most significant times when the use of new media detracted from the performance were when technicians making mistakes with cues or apparatus suddenly jerked the spectator out of any emotional engagement. Actors were unable to cover these mistakes without coming out of character or changing text and these few but noticeable moments problematised the representation they had created and greatly distracted from their presence.
On the subject of taking the production further a noted director who had been in the audience shared how although he had been moved by the production he would be unsure how the text, that had since been effected by the use of new media, would work in a less intimate venue. The likes of Robert Lepage would perhaps have an answer, stating that the use of new media is the very aid to maintaing intimacy in a large venue and that ʻyou have to rely on technology to magnify you, to change the scale on which you workʼ2.
Bibliography
• Euripides. Medea and other Plays (tr. Philip Vellacott, London: Penguin, 1963)
• Giesekam, G. Staging the Screen (Hampshire and New York: Palgrave, 2007)
• Birringer, J. Media and Performance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998)
Quotation from Charest, R. Robert Lepage: Connecting Flights (tr. W. R. Taylor, London:
Methuen, 1997)
1 – Cf. Giesekam, 2007, 34
2 - Charest, 1997, 111. Cited from Giesekam, 2007, 219.
Jodi De Souza
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