Digital theatre production “Connections” brought together students from four different Atlantic universities to bring theatre to your living room.
“Connections” explored the familiar pandemic themes of isolation, mental health, and racial injustice.
The actors, all students from the Maple League of Universities, performed live over Zoom from their homes.
Whether it was here in Sackville, Antigonish, or Barbados, the actors used their own laptops or cell phones to capture song, dance, painting, and their varying pandemic experiences.
Director Neil Silcox, Toronto-based Mount Allison Crake Fellow, says he wanted to bring the theatre-going experience to those who miss it as much as he does.
He says that “part of what is nice about theater is that it happens in a kind of dark, cramped room, [and] you can’t get away from your neighbor. You have to acknowledge that we’re in it together.”
Sitting in a theatre is not the only part of performance that has been dramatically interrupted.
Silcox says that COVID-19 forced him, and all theatre teachers, to reevaluate their usual tried and true methods.
Theatre classes usually consist of students and teachers “roll[ing] around on the floor and run[ning] around in circles,” which is difficult to do online.
Auditions and rehearsals took place exclusively over Zoom.
“Connections” was built from the ground up collaboratively, with much of the inspiration coming from the actors themselves.
Silcox’s job as director is to then “shape and guide” their inspiration into what he calls a “theatrical pastiche.”
Actors shared dance, poetry, and song along with personal stories of loneliness and isolation experienced in their residence rooms.
Mount Allison-based actor Aleyx Smith says that she shared some things for the first time ever in these performances.
As for the dreaded Zoom hiccups, Silcox and Smith agree that flubs are an integral part of the theatre experience.
“Theatre is an art form that embraces imperfection. Movies are perfect, theatre embraces the liveness, the here and now, the fact that things are not quite polished to a high gloss all the time," says Silcox.
"I think there’s beauty and power in that.”
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