Hey, Kos -- if you're still in Los Angeles and want to check out some experimental blog-inspired theatre, check this out:
There is a blog-related show is playing at UCLA's Freud Theatre this weekend. There's a matinee tomorrow (Saturday) at 2:00 which I will be attending, and another show at 7:30.
I know a few of the folks involved... and attended an early planning meeting. I urged the Mel to look at the wonderful character that is Maryscott as well as the reporting of SusanG. :) I'm anxious to see where he took his original idea.
From the LA Times Review:
In an adjoining chamber decorated with a semblance of the U.S. presidential seal, a quartet of TV sets awaited pre-taped opinion pieces by actor/pundits such as Matt Weedman, who compiled his comments from the liberal DailyKos.com site. To ensure what Shapiro wryly calls "fair and balanced" coverage, Jason Greenfield's televised tape loop features hand puppets voicing Republican and Democratic perspectives on the Iraq War.
More below the fold.
"I got fascinated with these bloggers who were doing investigative reporting with this incredible passion and wondered if there was a way of putting this kind of thing on stage," Shapiro says. "I kept saying to the actors, 'It doesn't make any difference what political side you're on, but you should get involved in what the arguments are on these issues. What about this war in Iraq?' I was trying to provoke them into an involvement with these things, and then the project started to develop from there."
To prime his actors for the show's overtly political material, Shapiro first urged them to create faux blogs for historical figures. Beyond the informational nuggets mined online, the blogosphere's raw spontaneity rubbed off on some of the performers.
[...]
The actors' solo spots lead up to "Homer in Cyberspace," which re-imagines the first four chapters of "The Iliad" as a metaphor for the Iraq War. Massive video projections, programmed with video game software by UCLA's Center for Research in Engineering, Media and Performance REMAP group, portray Athena and Hera as goddesses dishing dirt about the Trojan War. On the ground, live actors debate dubious reporting from the field.
Shapiro wrote the piece, he said, because "I've been fascinated with the way the administration -- any administration -- sends out disinformation and mixed signals. This was also so much the core of 'The Iliad' in that the gods kept screwing up the mortals and lying to each other, and then waging a war for ridiculous reasons. Because, Helen of Troy was stolen. It just seemed very apt."
"Project" culminates in an ensemble performance featuring excerpts from "Just Another Soldier," blogged by an American G.I. stationed in Iraq. The soldier's first-person reportage is juxtaposed with readings from riverbendblog.blogspot.com, posted by an Iraqi woman and published in book form as "Baghdad Burning."
Cross posted at My Left Wing.