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We Need (More) Sci-Fi in Theatres |
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Meta -
Blabber
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Written by Antti
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Wednesday, 27 August 2008 |
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As in theatres where real people perform on a stage. That's how I've felt for a long time now. Both the psychological science fiction stories and the galaxy destroying time-warping speculative black hole physics stuff, too. Imagine how cool it would be.
 The thing is, most of the theatre world isn't into sci-fi or they just outright feel like sci-fi is not for the real stage. The day I first realized this was when I got feedback for my dramaturgy assignment from my professor in the applied drama classes. I had dramatized William Gibson's Hinterlands. She noted that she hadn't ever thought about dramatizing science fiction nor had anyone else dramatized a piece of sci-fi as an assignment. She also seemed to be surprised by the themes explored in the piece, as if serious theme exploration in science fiction was something she did not know existed. And she probably didn't know such a thing existed as well.
I think that many works of science fiction would prosper on stage. The scale of some of Alastair Reynolds' visions combined with the presence of actors to convey the effect of those massive-scale events is something I dream about frequently. Other works, such as William Gibson's newer novels and Ballard's Super-Cannes, for example, would serve as ideal vessels for exploring the values in contemporary society and its future outlook. And the strength of putting it on stage in theatre would be to ground it in human experience provided with the actors present in the same space as the audience.
This was today's sermon. Go in peace, my brothers and sisters.
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