Part of Your (Site-Specifc) World (Entry #7)

     We've all seen our share of good and bad productions of Disney's The Little Mermaid. I've heard of productions where actors wear roller skates to float around the stage. I was in a production where we blurred the lines between land and sea with huge amounts of blue fabric used in different ways. But imagine how awesome it would be to see a production of The Little Mermaid that actually takes place in the water. 

     If I was directing this, I would stage it at Sea World in the enormous whale tank where they stage the whale shows. The audience is positioned in a way that they can see what's happening above the water, but they can also see what's happening below with plexiglass windows on the sides of the tank. (I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, but for reference…) The tank is large enough that you could fit a believable size boat in it for Prince Eric and crew, and the boat could also be used as a playing area for actors. I would use rain and wind machines to simulate weather and thunderstorms. The platforms built into the space, normally used by the Sea World performers, would be transformed into another playing area. The most important playing area for this show would be the actual water. Actors could float, swim, dive, splash, and jump through the water. The whole show is about being "Under the Sea", so I would adapt the show to focus more on water choreography and dance, a la Cirque du Soleil's O. It would maintain the storyline and musical elements of the Disney show, but in a totally reimagined way. I'm not sure if staging it in water would make the show more abstract or more literal, but I think either way would be incredibly exciting to see.

     The framework of site-specific theatre would both positively and negatively affect my production. From an audience perspective, I think people would fall in love with it. Water is such an interesting element in theatre because you have little to no control of it. You might float away from your scene and have to swim back to it. I think it would also be exciting to see how the production changes from the one you would normally see on stage. From an actor's standpoint, I think the show would be fun but grueling. You would have to be comfortable performing in water, in great physical shape to swim and dive and project lines, and have to deal with all the troubles that performing a show in a giant pool would bring about. It would be difficult for all involved - water-proof costumes, mics and sound vs water, floating props, water-proof set pieces, trying to decide if having real fish in the pool with actors is a good idea or not. It would challenge everyone artistically in a really interesting way.

     I disagree with Kantor's quote. I don't think the theater "has been completely sterilized and neutralized by centuries-old practices". Yes, most shows follow the standard creation process of a show, and are lit, sound designed, and set designed in similar ways, but I'm not convinced that staging or devising a production outside of a traditional theatre is the only way to lead to some new marvelous creation. I think a great example of that are productions that place in the Reilly. Look at August: Osage or Five Flights. Although the Reilly is technically a transformed place from the start, it is now an adapted thrust stage at heart. Time and time again, designers break "centuries-old practices" in this space and create new and interesting designs that you normally wouldn't see. While site-specific theatre is a wonderful way to materialize drama, the "traditional theatre" is just as capable of breaking tradition.