About style

I have been thinking recently about styles of theatre and performance. Especially producing the Feast of New Theatre, I have been watching 6 groups go through rehearsal processes (with the goal of developing the playwright's script) and presentations and the work they have been doing to craft believable and interesting stories and characters.

I have been thinking about the term "theatre installation" and what it suggests - the way in visual arts you go to a gallery and see a body of work usually by one artist or one group working together, yet the pieces of art there don't concern the same characters moving through a linear narrative. Often the works are linked by a broad theme, question or message and aren't meant to be viewed in any particular order or to influence one another very strongly.

This is what I would like to be possible in the theatre as well - a performance that brings many things to light and asks many related questions but not always by showing what happens to one group of people over a certain period of time.

This is obvious to many practitioners of theatre internationally, but in the Christchurch theatre community I really feel a strong predeliction for narrative structure as the only way to express whatever is to be expressed.

Above, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers in Velvet Goldmine, an inspiration for a costume I hope to make for the show...