Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 07:21:28 -0400
Subject: Re: PUPT: Eureka!


Oh how I hate to post a response to this, cause I believe that the
audience is always key.

What good is any performance that doesn't communicate something to an
intended audience??

Now that could be part of the problem. Intended audience. A performer
should know his/her audience. If the piece is wrong for the people who
are coming then perhaps something is wrong with the advertising of the
piece.

Sometimes a performer needs to educate their audience, that is a
different situation.

A performer can't present a work that is rejected and be upset that it
is so. The performer's contract is that they need to find a way to
acceptably present the ideas (and views) that they wish to present and
that those ideas are accepted because the audience is willing or capable
or taught to accept and grow from them.

I remember back in '80 seeing a Bread & Puppet production of St. Joan
where a lot of religious folk were insulted and left. That was fine, it
was an international festival and they were not the intended audience.
They were part of the people attending the festival. There were other
shows as well that some found offensive, again that was fine because
they were not really the intended audience just merely a part of the
group. I also remember that there was a warning given involving the
Brazilian show (which was moved from a main stage performance place)
because of its sexual content.

Hey you can't please everyone, but you can work toward communicating
with an intended audience.

I did a show a couple of years ago that had really mixed results, some
minor success and some major failures. The failures surprised me. I
interviewed the sponsors I found out what was troubling and I changed
the program. I am still working on the concept. What I found to be very
interesting was that the character that I was presenting and trying to
create was conceived in a way that I had no idea was possible. The
language I was using and the images I was presenting no longer had any
commonality with the audience. They saw something and reacted to
something that I had no idea was possible to discern from what was being
presented.

I was performing a pushcart salesperson they were seeing a homeless bag
man.

I want my ideas and um vision accepted and for that I need to
communicate to the audience and find the right language to do so.

The audience in my view is the key.

Mark Segal

PS I like Eureka cause I still can get some value from it.




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