Live Performance on Trial
an Institute of Ideas debate at the Fringe Club, Edinburgh
11 August 2000

Brendan O'Neill

Many shows at this year's Edinburgh festivals are 'interactive'.

This means they use some new technology or prop to interact with their audiences and to engage viewers more effectively than traditional performance ever did, when the audience were expected to sit back and passively consume what was on stage. Following on from the previous day's debate about the new emphasis on catering to audience needs, The Institute of Ideas continued its Culture Wars series by looking at live performance and its future in a world saturated by TV, film and the Internet.

Eddie Gibb, feature writer and TV critic for the Sunday Herald, kicked off the debate by looking at the question of technology, wondering whether the use of computers or video or even text-messaging the audience via mobile phones (as one show at Edinburgh does) did anything to improve the audience's experience.

Sladjana Vujovic, a theatre producer, director, actor and playwright, worried that the current trends in live performace might represent the victory of style over substance - where technology could possibly suck the life out of the theatre. She argued that live performace would continue despite the competition from TV and film and despite the new fad for technology, because it continues to provide something fundamental to human beings and their understanding of the world.

Barb Jungr, chanteuse and cabaret singer, agreed - for her, a society without live performance is a dead society. Marcus Davey, CEO of the Roundhouse Theatre in London, which has staged the highly interactive and highly praised De La Guarda for the past two years, put in a good word for the move towards interactivity. He argued against the notion of theatre directors as old-fashioned cultural gatekeepers, because that meant telling the audience what to think and giving them what is good for them. But with interactive technology, the audience can tell theatre directors what they want and what they appreciate.

Simon Munnery, comedian extraordinaire, whose current act The League Against Tedium is going down a storm at the festival, turned up unfashionably late. He mumbled about the death of capitalism, the evils of shopping and why we should all go to the fields. Now. But he too argued for the survivial of live performance, pointing out that there is a world of difference between a live show and something on TV. He said the good thing about this Institute of Ideas debate is that it's live and we can all be more intimate and engaging - if it was being filmed that would immediately change the atmosphere in the room and the vigour of the debate.

As the discussion developed, the audience and panel examined the question of what it means to interact and engage with an audience. Do we really need gimmicks and technology to reach an audience and move them? Many contributors made the point that new technologies often improve a show and have been used to great effect at venues across Edinburgh. But if we want to engage with an audience, surely it would be better to stimulate them intellectually?

Claire Fox, director of The Institute of Ideas, said that often the use of technology is just banal while there is no replacement for 'interacting' with an audience on a challening and intellectual level, where you stretch their imaginations and make them think differently about the world.