Multimodal Theatre Experiences: Africa and 2 Dimensional Life of Her

Abstract

Australia's theatre for young audiences (TYA) has concentrated on young people's interest in techno-savvy narrative complexities since the early 1990s, and has done so with positive outcomes. Building from a reflective inquiry, which is based on a TYA practitioner's viewpoint, I explore two Australian contemporary theatre productions for mixed audiences: My Darling Patricia's Africa (2011) and Fleur Elise Noble's 2 Dimensional Life of Her (2011), which utilize old and new technologies for differing purposes. I present the following article in two parts: The first section briefly contextualizes TYA plays in Australia using digital technologies, along with a review of the literature that introduces an ongoing dialogue about digital media in theatre. The second part showcases the creative development process and the synopsis of Africa and 2 Dimensional Life of Her before I discuss the use of old technology in Africa in the form of a techno-tele-character, and the impact of new technologies in 2 Dimensional Life of Her as a transmediated theatrical occurrence. Recommendations are made for ways that TYA practitioners might consider mixing old and new technologies with the live to compete in the cultural marketplace.

Notes

I would like to thank Assistant Professor Tauel Harper for his insight and comments regarding the final editing stages of this article. I would also especially like to thank the reviewers for their feedback and valued encouragement with the development of this article.

¹The creative teams behind Africa and 2 Dimensional Life of Her were invited to take part in the 2011 Association Internationale du Théâtre de l' Enfance et la Jeunesse (ASSITEJ; International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People) Festival. However, the production 2 Dimensional Life of Her was officially accepted as Australia's TYA representative because the creative team behind Africa decided to accept an invitation to tour nationally in Australia.

²There is only a small amount of literature on “imagined worlds” in English. Paracosms, or “imagined worlds,” were first noted by the late Robert Silvey in the 1940s, who spent his working life carrying out audience research for the British Broadcasting Corporation and who had had an imagined world as a child. He teamed up with a British psychiatrist, Stephen MacKeith, and together they contacted a number of people who had had paracosms. The completed project resulted in a chapter in Morrison's (1998) Organizing Early Experience. After Silvey's death in 1981, MacKeith joined with psychologist, writer, and filmmaker David Cohen to further analyze the information.