Cross-media stage productions must overcome several dangers -- some stylistic, some thematic and some technical to avoid not doing justice to any of the chosen media. The direction needs to be meticulous to smooth the seams between the media while the production requires a high degree of subtlety.
Pink Moon Music Theatre (
This time around, director Koji Sakurai has teamed up house music DJ SL (
"It's more a concert than a play, really. There's a story, but the music is what drives the show," SL said earlier this week after rehearsal.
The story is drawn from poems written by Chieh that tell of one woman's overpowering urge to leave the city she lives in to travel in search of new faces, new places and hopefully a new self. But as opposed to a narrative driving the story, the show hinges on the twin motifs of the color red and the letter S, which comes through in the multimedia element of the show and in the selection of composers played by Chieh on the harp, all of whom have names beginning with S.
The assortment of musical styles in the show is intended to reflect the characters' personalities and to individualize their communication, which is another reminder of how the central aspect in this play is actually the music.
"It's very free form, but the sparse dialogue and the interaction with the multimedia projections help it all to make sense," SL said.
The show will be staged tonight and tomorrow at
7:30pm at the Novell Hall (
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