Dear Designers of The Illusion,Thank you all for a great launch this week.
So! Here we go!!
The image to the Left is a good representation of the audience /Pridamant's experience. Something starts deep and busts open new sections and new layers in the brain until it expands all the way to the universe. I also like that it is the force of the "light" shining through the brain that illuminates the different plains.
In recap of the launch:
What's this play about?
This is a play about the power of illusions to illuminate the truth of human existence. Illusions disorient the senses opening a space in the brain for the possibility that what we see and hear in this world may not be the whole truth.
Sub set 1: It is about the hearts revolting cry to live freely, and the choice we often make to be an "ego-anarchist" as Kushner calls it, choosing the safety of our cultural prejudice.
Sub set 2: It explores the "comodification of the artist/spectator exchange" and implicates the theatrical aparatus in the enslaving nature of a consumerous society.
Story
The Illusion tells the tragedy of a guild ridden prominent lawyer searching for his estranged son, and, after being broken open to feeling the purest force of love by the tricks of an illusion depicting the entire spectrum of human emotions, he chooses not to reuinite with his son at all, and returns to his personal of cultural perception, prejudices, and fears.
Why Here?
"The theater - all that effort devoted to building a make-believe world out of angel hair and fancy talk, no more substantial than a soap bubble." - TK
To promote the deep purpose of the frivilous.
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How are we going to do this?
I think a great unifying way to progress is to think of this cave as a phsychological magic box. The equipment, theatrical tricks, and heart pounding thrills of the box belong to Alcandre, and the mysterious intangible force of tranformation, specified for each of Alcandre's visitors, is the work of the aminuensis. This is a heart cracking machine, designed to squeeze water from grannit.
The cave : Never know the end, layered, sensory disorienting, perhaps the audience needs to "wormhole" through a tunnel when they walk into the Chosky, taking them to another time and space.
Alcandre creates magical evocations of theatrical genres. He uses these pop forms of theater to evoke a new incarnation of love that will work on Pridamant, almost like they are weapons - different types of resuscitators.
Illusion #1: Early 17c France. 1636.
For Young Love he uses the fast and furious genre of the 1635 Commedia Dell Arte: Bubbles
and flowers and music and fun, moons and comedy. The relationship to the audience is direct interaction, in and around them. Perhaps paper and cotton balls make the costumes. The sound would be an actor played lute or flute. Illusions of pantomime. Playful, funny, fast, raunchy, joyful, youth, rough, pantomime. This is intended to delight Pridamant - the sweet bate.
Illusion 2: Mid-Late 18c France. Georgian.
For betrayal, lust, passion and the theatre container comes from the Commedie Franciase in 1750 is the inspiration for this. Melodrama, farce, Georgian, "Marie Antoinette". This was a time of great consumption and wealth, and extreme poverty. The drops were painted to fade to a vanishing point. Perhaps we use plastic materials make up costumes that are illusions of gradure. The music is the illusion of a full orchestra. The relationship to the audience is in proscenium. An extremely vocal audience, "the Parterre," used to stand in the orchestra floor and shout back to the performers. People came to the theatre to see and be seen. This illusion is about taking him on a wild ride of emotions through laughter at seeing the clown version of himself in Metamore and the dark nightmare of himself, Geronte.
To evoke the love story that ends with such rage and dispair, we are setting this last illusion at the year currently designated to be the end of the world. The container is technology. Live feed cameras magnify the people's emotions. It is an Augmented Reality world where people are trying to find their love amidst illusion versions of each other. Other inspirations for this world come from the pageantry of the heavy metal rock concert. This is the big cracking moment of Pridamant's heart as he seeing the two people he loves the most go through such despair and then the horrifying murder.
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Design ideas:
Layers: Multiple levels of screens or layering different images upon each other.
Opposites : the cave/box and the illusions are opposite entities of each other.
Empty, colorful,
void, full
disorganized/ungraspable, organized/understandable
uninviting/attractive
Mirrors: There is something to the idea of "smoke and mirrors" as a tool in the box. Father and Son seeing each other through time and space, Geronte as the mirror image of Pridamant's worst fear of himself.
The image below is of DREAM THEATER's record cover. This is a beautiful image exploring the relationship between the illusions and the cave. How the illusions can "blossom" or appear inside the box in different ways. And how we can create a "threshold" without it having to be the proscenium arch of the stage. (Also, I like the image of Avignon in the background.)
See you all tomorrow at 4:30!
Allegra
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