Immersive Theatre’s Superpower, Part 3: The Primacy of Text

In traditional theatre, directors and actors talk a lot about subtext. After all, the playwright has set the text for us, the words are not in dispute, so we devote our creative energies to realizing all the ways people would live out these lines and communicate non-verbally. How would they move, respond, and betray their deeper meanings? That’s subtext.

In immersive theatre, when performers respond to their audience and other realities around them, not only do we deliver subtext, but we can wield the far mightier weapon of text proper.

The Albee Controversy

This past May, the theatre community enjoyed a great kerfuffling that had everyone taking sides. A producer in Portland had cast a black actor in the role of Nick in Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf? When the Albee estate got word of this, they more or less requested that Nick be re-cast as Caucasian as intended by the author. When the producer refused, the Albee Estate rescinded the rights to the show.

Note that this casting choice requires cutting lines that refer to Nick’s blonde hair and blue eyes, so it’s not just subtext that changes with this casting. (Although this raises another the question: should only Aryans be cast in the role?)

So: is the Albee Estate correct in policing the interpretation of the play? Or should directors be free to cast differently than the author imagined, and so tell a new story within the old story?

I fall heavily on the side of the Estate. Virginia Woolf? is a staunchly realistic play that reflects a specific time and place (personally, I consider it too old to be understood by 2017 audiences, our culture of relating has changed so much). A mixed-race marriage, although legal in New England at the time, would hardly be common. Add that to the mix, and you alter the fundamental dynamics of the play. As Albee himself considered it, a mixed-race marriage “would not have gone unacknowledged in conversations in that time and place and under the circumstances in which the play is expressly set.”

Essentially: there would be text. Adding subtext where the behaviors of George, Martha, Honey, and Nick acknowledge the race issue isn’t enough. It’s simply not a thing humans would do. While it’s true that we don’t always say what we feel, things can reach a point where something is a big enough deal that we’d respond with words proper. And words are not within the rights of directors who’ve licensed a play.

And honestly, if you want to tell that story, get thee to a keyboard. Write it yourself! No one’s stopping you but you.

authors vs. Auteurs

I think theatre is suffering from an epidemic of auteur directors: directors who feel they can—or should—tell “new” stories with the same old scripts. Most often, they want to cast light on prejudices, or perhaps they just want to make things more interesting. Likely there’s some vanity involved in doing something “unique” with Hamlet. But this approach, if not handled very astutely, ends up fundamentally changing the story as written. It can easily slip into Stunt Theatre.

Probably our Shakespearean traditions are to blame: to keep his supremely old plays relevant, directors often take wild liberties that involve unusual casting and bizarre settings, plus plenty of judicious cuts or textual changes to make it all hang together. No problem—there’s no Estate to defend Shakespeare! I myself have indulged in such liberties in the past: modernizing Hamlet and gender-swapping Horatio into a friend-zoned woman, turning Salerio into a courtesan fond of serving the priest Solanio.

Note how both of these changes gave a new and sizeable part to an actress—the real goal behind my machinations. Did I go too far? I thought my Salerio/Solanio choice added to the sense of Venetian corruption, important in a play where there are no heroes. I think I toed the line of auteuring that underlines themes instead of undermines them. But no doubt Shakespeare would have written very bawdy text if this was what he intended! Were my audiences confused that the characters never verbally acknowledged Salerio’s status in the community? The reality of the world I gave them grated against the text-as-written—and only words could resolve that tension.

It’s more acceptable in Shakespeare: the heightened language has an alienating effect on the audience—we’re already experiencing unrealistic behaviors—and so we can live with the lack of people talking about what’s actually going on before our eyes. Plus we know Shakespeare’s plays well and can usually identify the director’s flourishes. With other stories though, auteurs can easily leave their audiences fundamentally confused.

Words speak louder than actions

We communicate a great deal with our bodies, but to really get things done, we use words. It’s one thing to be eyeing me all night, but a totally different, impossible-to-ignore thing when you ask, “Want to go back to my place?” We miss body language all the time (my now-husband missed mine for months!), but unless we have our earbuds shoved deep into our auditory canals, we don’t miss words.

When it comes to communication and response, words are the more powerful tool. Immersive theatre, uniquely positioned as responsive storytelling, should use words freely. Especially when something attention-grabbing happens, words help diffuse the tension between the reality of the moment and the imaginary world of the story. Auteur theatre can only dream of such powers.

Now of course, I got permission from my author before that first time I veered off-script. Happily the authors of The Man From Beyond decided that it’s more important to respond to the moment than it is to stick to the script. So sometimes text gets skipped or replaced, and I keep that up until it feels natural to get back on track. I think that’s great. Keeping things real should matter more in this genre.

If there’s a ban on text as in Sleep No More, performers have to rely on body language to respond to or correct their audience. How adept they are at manipulating our bodies to do what they want! But if the format of the show allows for words, more powerful response is possible. The audience may not respond to Madame Daphne parting the curtain, but they’ll never ignore “Please, follow me.”

I think language is particularly helpful in audience correction: it’s faster, clearer, and easier to internalize as you continue inside the experience. My first time at the McKittrick, I got in a brief skirmish with a black mask. I didn’t understand at first that he was blocking my way on purpose; if he could have said “You can’t go in there,” it would have cleared matters up much faster. (Yeah, I…uhhh…tried to follow Lady Macbeth into her glass box.)

So whenever a player goes astray, has a clever notion, or something interesting happens, expect Madame Daphne to throw down some serious TEXT.