In this edition, things get personal.
With high school students discovering a personal connection with theatre at The Edinburgh Fringe, pieces from across Canada finding a way to personalize narratives, and our Geographic Correspondents finding personal answers to what ‘Leadership’ means to them – the personal immediate nature of theatre is exposed by these pieces.
I suspect this a quality to live performance that will always be accentuated by the fact that it can not be iterated. It allows each performance to be unique and different from any other which facilitates a personal connection to the work in a way that iterated work can not. Just as attending a concert is a more personal experience that throwing on an album (or Songza!), the liveness of live performance allows a more intimate personal connection.
I also suspect this is what has fuelled some of the opposition to web technologies being integrated into performance practice – the worry that digital integration will limit this advantage. Which is a reasonable worry, but it’s also possible theatre is stronger and more wily than that.
Michael Wheeler
Editor-in-Chief: #CdnCult Times
