A Uniquely Theatrical Experience

About a week ago I went to see Youngblood's production of Spirits to Enforce, a play by Mickle Maher. I loved it. The set was really cool, and the acting was phenomenal top to bottom. The play is about a group of superheroes that decided to put on a production of The Tempest and hold a telethon to finance it. Seriously. (I stole that “seriously” joke from Youngblood’s website, because really what else can you say?)
My friend Sara Zientek was in the show. She played a character called “The Bad Map”. Her superpower, to the best of my understanding, was the fact that she never planed anything out. In other words a villain could never plan how they were going to stop her because they (or her for that matter) never really knew what she was going to do next. Towards the end of the play when the heroes do finally mount their production Bad Map wasn’t there because she was “out looking at cats”. One of my favorite jokes of the show.
The entire production takes place in the heroes’ submarine, and the characters don’t talk to each other but instead talk on the phone to people they’re trying to get money from. An interesting thing happened during the production I saw. Towards the end of the show when Sara grabbed the receiver to talk to whoever, it wasn’t plugged into the rest of the phone. Basically it meant she was talking to no one. I wasn’t sure if this was supposed to happen or not. Had it happened to any of the other characters it would have obviously been a mistake, but Bad Map was one character that might actually tell a story to nobody. To Sara’s credit if it was a mistake she never lead on.
I was going to ask Sara about this the next time I saw her in class, but I decided I didn’t want to know. Not knowing is what makes theater theatrical. As far as I was concerned, that’s what was supposed to happen because that’s how it went in the show I saw. In a movie everyone sees exactly what the director wants you to see. It’s burned on to film and it’s going to be the same thing every time you watch it. But in theater, each show is it’s own individual thing. Now ideally, every show in a run is going to go the same way but there’s so many outside forces that actors just can’t control. A big factor is the audience. I’ve been in shows where the audience is so lively that they almost become a cast member. I’ve also been in shows that could have easily just been another rehearsal because we weren’t getting anything from the crowd.
There are other things too. Maybe an actor will trip on stage, maybe someone will say their line too soon. Maybe the sound guy who’s never used the sound system before will screw up and not make an explosion occur when it’s supposed to (not that that’s ever happened to me.) Or maybe the cord on a phone will come unattached and an actress will have to go on as if that was supposed to happen. Then again, maybe that was the plan all along.