alumni Class Notes
SCENE III: FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION DECKY
T e framework (for scenes and shows) went from questioning to ideas to maybe a personal story. We would address ideas. T e University might want us to address something, too, if there was something that was a big issue, like parking.
MARY
We’d lay down hot topics, stuff that’s going on, a question. What’s astonishing or uncharted? And what is the best format for the message? Is “privilege” best represented in a game show? Maybe! If you wanted people to laugh at it because it’s so intense that you can’t get it across any other way, then maybe that’s the way to do it. Or, is it a monologue when we’re talking about something like body image?
MARY
Everything we did was true. Very rarely would we ever stand there and say “I” or do something if that was not the experience of someone in the Troupe. So everything that happened—like doctor visits or body changes or struggling with drugs and alcohol, eating disorders, sexual orientation—was all based on actual experience.
DECKY
With this kind of theatre, when you talk about the process, it’s really okay to just be ambiguous and contradictory… that’s where art is. Also, I think that’s critical in this kind of theatre to be able to speak honestly and authentically. If you’re going to perform and your audience and your players are the same people, you’d bet er be honest. So, there’s awareness and then there’s information, and I think that there are ways to
disseminate it diff erently. It builds all those ways. It could come from a spark, a lot of times we’ll do spark stories like body image. We unpack them.
MARY
One of the questions on the table now, 15 years later, is “Is CloseUp still relevant?” And I think for the orientation show, people say, “Absolutely. Hands down, still absolutely strong and relevant.” But for some of our smaller shows, like the residence hall shows, not so much. Some of the conversations taking place now ask why we think that is. It’s because
students have access to this information now. T e Student Aff airs and multicultural competency work on campus is very diff erent than it was when we started CloseUp. But it still does what it’s supposed to do.
Mary
42 Eastern | SUMMER 2013
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