Plays or pixels? An online alternative to draughty and expensive theatres.
It's happened. Not only am I the sort of sad person who hangs around real theatres long after it's healthy to do so, now I'm also hanging around virtual theatres. Go to the internet world of Second Life and you're likely to find me lurking in the foyer of an unnamed theatre where this weekend the Sawston Players will be performing Joined at the Heart, a musical about Victor and Elizabeth Frankenstein.
As theatres go, it is a miserable-looking place, apparently built in the shell of a Victorian market with breezeblock dividing walls and a chilly-looking seating bank with only 36 chairs. It makes Glasgow's SECC look like a model of comfort and intimacy. As a newcomer to Second Life, I have yet to figure out how to sit down, so my avatar has been pacing around the building, waiting for Saturday's performance - and there's not an usher in sight.
Back in this dimension, I'll be too busy tucking into the three-dimensional Edinburgh Fringe to see the virtual performance for myself. I'll have to wait until the Sawston Players stage it in the real world.
On Second Life, the company is following in the footsteps of comedian Jimmy Carr (who was the first to do an interactive internet gig) by presenting the first online musical. I can't disagree with composer and musical director Graham Brown, who says it's a neat way to drum up a bit of publicity in the run-up to the Fringe.
But can the performance be described as theatre in any other sense? Mark Duffy of Fusion Unity, the company pulling the technical strings, sounds persuasive when he talks about the savings audiences will make by not having to travel or buy tickets. And because of Second Life's interactivity, he points out, they will be able to share their opinions as soon as the show is over. "You'll get that interaction the same way you would with an audience," he told the Stage.
Except, of course, the thing they will be reacting to will not be theatre, but an electronic imitation of it. The virtual audience might well declare the show a classic or a flop, as Duffy suggests, but their assessment can only be deeply flawed. What makes theatre special, the more so in this era of DVDs, computers and TV, is that it is not pre-recorded or mediated, it is there in front of us. Not only does it have three dimensions, but it also has presence. You can smell it. And on a good night, you can taste the sweat.
I've never seen a recording of a theatre performance that is not flat and lifeless. The rules, the rhythm and the spontaneity of a live event are meaningless on the small screen. Call me a Luddite, but the Second Life musical is not the future of theatre. By giving a distorted impression of what theatre is like, however, could it actually damage its real-world equivalent?
