Adaptations into intermedial theatre
- Submitting institution
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The University of Lancaster
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 306443499
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- HoD premiere at Teatro Sperimentale, Ancona, Italy then touring in UK and Switzerland, NotLD premiere at Leeds Playhouse then touring to UK and Brazil. Both also streaming online.
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first performance
- November
- Year of first performance
- 2018
- URL
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-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- These two productions were conceived as a major body of work to be produced over a four-year period. Arts Council England funding enabled imitating the dog to realise both productions in two parts. Over the four years there were 4 separate research and development periods and 12 rehearsal weeks for each production. Extensive background research on the Congo, Conrad’s writing, 1960s American politics and documentary practices, and George Romero’s films. Technical developments focused on the incorporation of green screen technologies and the use of projection mapping techniques, that were adapted within new strategies for scenography.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This multi-component output comprises two intermedial theatre performances by the company imitating the dog that adapt existing canonical works into theatre: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (HoD) and George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (NoLD). Already adapted for film, radical staging drew on these multiple precedents. Both were co-written and co-directed with Pete Brooks and funded by Arts Council England (total £180k) and venues (€35k, £50k).
Heart of Darkness used green-screen, live cameras and projection mapping, structuring the performance around the creation of a fictional graphic novel. Scenes interrogate the politics and challenges of adaptation, using documentary and other versions of Conrad’s novella including Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Night of the Living Dead – Remix used new projection mapping techniques with original line drawings and documentary material from the 1960s, to extend the visual and contextual landscape beyond previous iterations, interrogating the movie and its themes.
These re-stagings enabled performance to take new positions for exploring complex social and political questions, testing new strategies for exploring and deconstructing texts. The intertextual, visual and performative relationships made possible through intermedial theatre, involves innovation in staging, dialogue and temporal sequencing, provide effective creative strategies for adaptations.
These works have been recognised as instrumental in developing original technical innovation (‘truly ingenious’, The Observer), in the theoretical exploration of the social and political focus of the original authors, subsequent interpreters and analysts, as well as being new contributions to the interpretation of the original and other adaptations (‘radical every way, from the form to the story’, Sunday Times).
Related activities include contributions to symposiums and conferences in the UK, Italy and Canada, including ‘Adapting Conrad’, Conrad Society (2019) and ‘Adaption for the Digital Age’ University of York (2020). Live audiences totaled 6000 (NoLD) and 8,000 (HoD) with online audiences reaching 12,000 and 10,000.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -