Making Community in the Age of Migration: What Is the Role of Social Media in Contemporary Theatre

oleh: Janne Cleveland

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: IATC 2020-06-01

Deskripsi

In thinking about the aspects of staging that mediate performance, I turn to my experience of seeing the 2018 Stratford Festival production of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, directed by Robert Lepage. What stood out to me, in one scene, was how texting on a large screen conveyed dialogue to the audience, inserted humour and signaled the ways that communication takes place as much (if not more) through technology than in person in the twenty-first century. Given the plethora of technologies, both on our stages and in our lives, this paper explores, through a close examination of the use of media in this production, how the “social” aspect of social media brings us together (if it does), and what happens to our notion of community in a time of massive migrations resulting from the proliferation of social upheaval and unrest.