Blurring the Edges - comments on site specific work (David Wheeler and Richard Sobey, 2003)

Site specific shows can produce the most exciting and memorable theatre. If it's a good site, there are ready made advantages over conventional theatre venues. There is a unique and all-enveloping atmosphere generated when a real location is enhanced with the artifice of theatre. It can create a powerful mixture which is stimulating for the artists and thrilling to audiences. The inevitable neutral starting point of a theatre stage cannot compete with the real thing.

Keeping the theme as open as possible for as long as possible in the devising process allowed the artists to respond to the space and in this way the location helped to lead the development of the show.

The power of the material needs to be in balance with the power of the location. Some logic needs to be found for using a particular site for it to be in sympathy with the theme or artistic material - and vice versa. Without this, the result can be confusing or artistically hollow. There are some locations which have a powerful identity that can be difficult to use and need to be treated with caution. Using the grounds of a cathedral or a disused coalmine, for example, could suggest precise symbolic associations between the show and the setting. The setting can be strong enough to attract every element of the show around it like a magnet and the entire show could be interpreted in relation to a single idea or a spiritual or political point of view.

It is natural for audiences to search for meaning when they see a theatre production but, without being deliberately obscure, IOU is happiest when that sense of meaning is postponed for as long as possible - to the end of the show - or a day, a week, a month later. [I like this saying, I would like to achieve this in my theatre too!]

Article by David Wheeler Artistic Director and Richard Sobey Executive Producer of IOU Theatre

Wheeler, D., Sobey, R. (2003). Blurring the Edges - comments on site specific work. IOU Theatre. Retrieved 22 March 2009, from http://www.ioutheatre.org