The three main avenues that Leahey and the production team used of communicating dramaturgical information were lobby displays in the theatre, notes and printed information in the program, and electronic resources on the theatre's website.
In the lobby, there were three antique vibrators on display from the Museum of Sex. The first was a "personal massager" from 1948:
The next was the oldest vibrator on display, from 1902:
The last vibrator was from 1917, and it came with various attachments!
The program featured several interviews, articles, essays, and images. First was an interview with Sarah Ruhl by the director, Sandy Shinner. Next was an article by Leahey entitled "Love in the Electric Age," which chronicled the diagnosis of hysteria from the ancient Greeks to the invention of the vibrator in the 1880s. She also explained the "War of Currents" and the status of vibrators today as "tokens of pleasure, health, and free sexual expression." Reeny Hofrichter wrote a piece called "Instant Expert: In the Next Room" which explained in short blurbs wet nursing, Victorian manners, and the history of AC/DC. Finally, Caroline Timmer, the artistic assistant, discussed Victorian fashion. The pictures she included can be seen below:
On the website, there were three brief videos that were essentially blurbs from the director. They were titled "On the inspiration," "On the technology and innovation," and "On the play," though the titles were a little arbitrary as all three videos were pretty similar. Basically, each video was just a clip from a longer section of Shinner talking about her analysis of the play--nothing super innovative or exciting. Also, the videos themselves were pretty old-fashioned as far as videos go--just a head-on, static view of the director, "talking head"-style. There also was a kind of fun video of the photo shoot for the poster.
In addition to the videos, the website featured several links. One was to the Lincoln Center Theater Review magazine for their production of In the Next Room. This magazine, which was available for PDF download, featured resources as varied as Emily Dickinson poems, articles by historians, and essays by feminist performance artists, as well as some beautiful photography. Overall, it was an outstanding, fascinating collection. There also was a link to a biography of Sarah Ruhl (the same one that was in the program), three interviews with Ruhl about In the Next Room (about the LCT production, the Wilma Theater production, and an article from Time Out New York), and a review of Victory Gardens's own production.
Overall, the dramaturgical approach was pretty effective, if not especially innovative. The lobby display was interesting if minimal, the program notes were very thorough and informative, and the website provided some quality follow-up resources for audience members who were interested. Although, there was no direction in the program to visit the website--that might have been nice, since there was some new information there. The main areas that were lacking were in using media other than written/printed text--perhaps some more exciting videos either on the website and/or in the lobby, and maybe some sort of interactive or dynamic lobby display (instead of just one small display case).
No comments:
Post a Comment