Tuesday, October 27, 2009

 

Theatre as Internet Downloads

New U.K. company Digital Theater has announced that productions from high-profile Brit legit troupes including the Royal Shakespeare Company, Almeida, Royal Court Theater, English Touring Theater and the Young Vic will now be available as Internet downloads

(from Variety).

The whole point about theatre is that it's live. Flesh-and-blood actors are up there on the stage. That’s why you spend big money on tickets and travel. To see the real thing. Everything else is merely moving pictures. But few people see theatre live. Okay, 50m or more have seen Les Misérables. Most shows, though, are lucky to get tens of thousands; some get hundreds. Then they are just memories. This is odd in the age of infinite copies.
Delamere and Tom Shaw, a film, video and live events expert, have taken the theatrical bull by the digital horns. Last night, at midnight, their website went live. It is a theatrical version of iTunes.
On the basis of what I've seen, the results are superb. When I visited Digital Theatre's Soho office, I was glumly expecting the usual deadness of the filmed stage performance. What I got was something quite new. Thanks to the editing and the multiple points of view, you feel inside the piece in a way that compensates for the loss of that flesh-and-blood thing

(from Times Online).

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