A Review of Zoom interactive performance, 'Helping Hands': process, distress, success and who was helped.

Abstract

Intervention for Russell Anderson’s work-in-progress Interactive Zoom theatre performance conducted on 6th August 2021 at 1:00 pm (U.K time), for a PhD thesis at Oxford Brooke's University was called 'Helping Hands'. Exploration and involvement of socio-digital options in Zoom theatre performativity, invokes questioning the adaptive process, distress and success as well as whom are we helping by being involved? Are we helping the company hosting the Zoom application, digital-theatre experimenters, the characters in the play, real people with similar socio-political problems as depicted in the play, ourselves or Russell Anderson? My personal experience and observations, beginning from receiving the digital mail invitation and background information of the performance, until the discussion about the work, in the end will be narrated with critical observations on each character's role and background, audio-visual spectrum, additional software and applications used, spect-actorship and employment of the break-out room feature of the Zoom application. The referenced theatre genres and probable methodologies employed in structuring the performance will be discussed by referring to Sir Andersons personal notes on the matter. The emotions and doubts, particularly that of whom I was helping, during the performance will be addressed in terms of the nature of the interactive, hyperdrama’s structure and the overall effect that it influenced. Its outcome will be critically compared with observations made by other scholarly reviewers on other Zoom adaptive performances, namely, Karen by The Transit Ensemble, Newspaper Theatre workshop by Seattle Rep, The Belle’s Stratagem by Red Bull Theatre, Time Machine by Creation Theatre and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by CtrlAlt_Repeat, while addressing Interaction, communication, mediatization and liveness in digital theatre.