♻️Translating Theatricality

Wayfinding: Taxonomy > Cinematic Theatre > Translating Theatricality

Translating emotional immersion from stage to screen requires navigating the affordances of both and choosing which techniques best communicate the feeling of attending the performance. of audience interpretation of the filmic-stage experience:

… once represented on screen, it is possible that audiences no longer see theatre as theatre but as video, film or television. The screen representation not only becomes a surrogate show, but in fact the only show that we are able to see (literally, given the ephemerality and unavailability of the live performance). The problem remains, however, of how to watch this particular kind of show, located as it is somewhere between our experiences and expectations of both theatre and film or television.

Since Cinematic Theatre draws most on the immersive and emotive experience of being an audience member, while foregoing other ontological touchstones like liveness, you as the theatre maker will need to choose which parts of the experience are most important for your audience. : ‘the more transparent the medium, the more we feel surrounded by the world that the medium represents’. Using to discuss transparent vs. hypermedial media, Kattenbelt suggests that film encourages immersion through a collage of images which create a sense of cohesion when edited together; this filmic world becomes ‘easy and safe to believe in’ because the film’s creative team process the narrative into chunks for us, which we as the audience then allow to wash over us so we are immersed in the narrative and emotion.

When translating a stage production onto film, the filmmakers can engage this approach to audience immersion not only for the narrative unfolding onstage, but for the experience of being in the theatre space itself – and this is what many Cinematic Theatre makers choose because a hallmark of the form is the overall theatrical experience, including being inside the venue and amongst other audience members. The dramaturgy of these filmic choices is discussed in the next section.