Unity of Space
Wayfinding: Taxonomy > Cinematic Theatre > The Dramaturgy of the Cinematic View > Unity of Space
, ‘Film and Theatre’: ‘If an irreducible distinction between theatre and cinema does exist, it may be this. Theatre is confined to a logical or continuous use of space. Cinema (through editing, that is, through the change of shot – which is the basic unit of film construction) has access to an alogical or discontinuous use of space’. Natasha Rickman, who worked with Creation Theatre on several livestreamed, multimedia pandemic theatre experiments, similarly told me in our interview: ‘I felt that watching productions created for film, in which the actors were all in one place and filmed for broadcast gave the closest feeling to traditional theatre’. Unity of space can be communicated cinematically with shots of the audience, shots of the whole stage with set and actors together, and shots of the audience watching the production.
Filming performers together in the performance space demonstrates the unity of space to the film’s audience, although this was more difficult during the pandemic due to social restrictions. In 2020, Morgan Green and other artists working with the Wilma Theater formed Covid-safe bubbles before and during the filming of both Heroes of the Fourth Turning (by Will Arbery) and Fat Ham (by James Ijames). This allowed performers, cinematographers, director, and designers to work without masks or social distancing in one location, creating a stage-like unity of space outside of a traditional theatre building. For a Cinematic Theatre audience watching at a temporal and physical distance from the onstage show, the unity of space containing all the actors/characters feels more theatrical than the quick edits of film, in which actors do not even need to be in the same room.
Unity of space is also important when capturing site-specific works, although the transition from filming fourth wall theatre to capturing another type of space use takes careful planning. ‘Immersive production is really hard to shoot with a set of equipment which is by nature static and tied to a specific location’, Green told me; and she is right, this was true for the three shows I helped Grant Knutson and Lunaa A.E. Wolfe (Minion Productions) film in the Pacific Northwest (USA) in July 2023.
In Portland, Oregon, Minion Productions was asked to capture an immersive site-specific dance piece set in a warehouse along the Willamette River. Knutson had watched the show during a dress rehearsal, including capturing some preliminary footage, and plotted where four of us should film: he and Wolfe took two different positions with larger cameras, another crew member had a Go-Pro and walked with some of the actor/audience promenade, and I, as a filmmaking newcomer, was handed an iPhone and told to capture as much detail as possible. Amidst all this captured footage, we covered numerous viewing angles and experiences, which even an in-person audience could not get just by attending the show once or twice.
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