Theatre and the Digital

by Bill Blake

Why should the digital bring about ideas of progress in the theatre arts?

This question opens up a rich seam of provocative and original thinking about the uses of new media in theatre, about new forms of cultural practice and artistic innovation, and about the widening purposes of the theatre's cultural project in a changing digital world. Through detailed case-studies on the work of key international theatre companies such as the Elevator Repair Service and The Mission Business, Bill Blake explores how the digital is providing new scope for how we think about the theatre, as well as how the theatre in turn is challenging how we might relate to the digital.

Genres: Nonfiction

100 pages, Paperback

First published October 3, 2014

Reviews

[Bethany Webb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect source for my Doctorate thesis

[Sarahj33 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of writing an 80 page book about the relationship between theatre and "the digital" is daunting, and author Bill Blake acknowledges that immediately. Rather than try to conduct an exhaustive survey of the relationship, he focuses on several examples of ways that people have found of reconciling theatre and digital media, in performances that their authors believe to be groundbreaking in some way. For example, one group experimented with the mediation of experience that digital media provides, as a contrast to live theatre, by producing a live performance that was viewed as if through a camera, on continuous repeat. Another group used a computer algorithm to combine existing texts randomly, and had them read live by actors in a site-specific piece. There are also twitter plays, iPod plays, and anything else you can imagine.

Many critics bewail the coming of the digital as the end of theatre as we know it, but Blake approaches the digital as a medium for creative transformation, not destruction. This is not because he thinks that is the only option, but because it is the most interesting one. This type of pragmatism keeps the book refreshing - I also enjoyed his criticism of several theatre groups mission statements as largely meaningless and abstract, which is a personal pet peeve of mine.

I found some parts of this book to be long on vocab and short on content, which is a shame for a book series that the editor claims should be "above all, clear." But for the most part, the writing was purposeful and not too 'artspeak-y'. The biggest irony of this book is the fact that I think it may have been presented in a less than ideal medium. Considering that almost every page referenced a YouTube video, website, or blog, it may have been better suited to a digital presentation, where it could have hyperlinked to the related sites. But once you get over the fact that you're going to have to either do a lot of googling or type a lot of long URLs, this book and its Further Reading section are a goldmine of information on the ideas touched on in the book. Ultimately, the book is a stepping off point, not an end in itself.

[Beks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Necessarily limited in scope due to the short overview nature of the "theatre &" series, Blake's survey nonetheless feels too niche and closeted given the title of the book. Restricted to just three main examples, all North American, he goes into a brief analysis of how and why the digital is used for theatre performance. He discusses instrumentalism and a new vogue for relational art; the problems of newness for the sake of being new and talked about, rather than excellence; theatre and "progress"; digital theatre as a tool for problem solving. In the end his thesis becomes a relativist statement about the metaculture in relation to the individual pieces of theatre within it. All in all a lucid entry point into thinking about the relationships between audience, theatre and the digital but not much more.