Jane Taylor, Ubu and the Truth Commission: Use of puppets and multimedia

1. To what extent has modern theatre successfully incorporated puppetry and/or multimedia? Does this enhance or detract from the overall production? Use examples from local productions you have seen, if possible.

With new technology popping up so rapidly these days, it is no surprise that theatre is also starting to rely on them to boost a point, or merely to enhance the theatricality of it all.

For example, in the SRT’s recent production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, multimedia was used for fancy lightings and that contributed to the whole ‘dream life’ fantasy that the play was supposed to portray to the audience. It also contributed to how the SRT decided to set a Shakespearean play in a partially modern context, since lights and media is something modern while the language used was still old Shakespearean types. However, it got confusing at times because I had the impression that it was going to be very purely Shakespeare (without modern contexts) and sometimes needed some time to register how they all were related because at times, it seemed like I was watching a few different plays consecutively.

Also, in the Young SRT’s production of Agamemnon, there was a scene where war was depicted through a short video (which was a blend of war scenes from recent movies) on the background. In Greek theatre, no violence was shown on stage and it was all reported off stage by an all important messenger. In this case, the violence has been depicted on a screen instead. This is appealing to the modern audience and is also a contribution to how the Young SRT also wanted to merge old and modern styles of staging together.

In all, multimedia has most of the time been incorporated successfully into theatre and has helped productions to give even more impact to the audience. For instance, a change in the lighting used can create an entirely new situation and mood on a similar stage.

- Melissa