New
York, NY---January 24, 2003 For Immediate Release Press Contact: Scott (212) 545-7114 |
Synaesthetic
Theatre Presents Narcotic… Narcosis… Narcissus. Echo.
Icon. Icon is a hypnotic, multimedia ride
through 50 years of American cinema, whose iconoclastic images have shaped
our dreams, delusions and desires. In
this retelling of the Narcissus Myth, a self-absorbed
media junkie spurns an obsessive lover---instead choosing to admire his
own fractured reflection, as seen in the television screens and the icons
he surrounds himself with. Around
him, shape-shifting nymphs vie for his attention as they take on cinematic
guises of fame and immortality. In a world where image is everything and
meaning lies hidden in subconscious waters, can doting lover Echo help
Narcissus break through the illusions? Synaesthetic
Theatre explores this question by delving into the fragmented mind of
a post-modern Everyman who has been shaped by an American datasphere
littered with images culled from film. These images are reshaped, reimagined, replicated and reconstructed by popular culture
until they become ICONS---symbolic prisms through which we look to place
our own dreams, fears, hopes and beliefs in context. Theater
and film converge in this meditation on our relationship to the media.
Pre-recorded
video, slide projections, an original score, found and created text, and
live video feeds combine to create an immersive multimedia landscape of
replicated gods and fragmented heroes struggling to be human in a world
of two-dimensional role models. Costume/Set
Design by David Crittenden; Light Design by Paul Hudson; Music by Rench; Sound Design by James Ford; Video/Film Design by John
DesRoches Associate Costume/Set Design by Aubrey Hardwick; Production
Coordinator, Paula A. Marchiel; Graphic Designer,
Maximilian Frey. |
|
Icon Access
the ICON WEBSITE www.i-con.tv |
***CRITICAL PRAISE
for Synaesthetic Theatre*** "Synaesthetic
Theatre captures the novel's angst and anomie with this multi-media version
of The Trial. Directors Joy Leonard and Chris Nichols use live
video feeds, distorted vocals, voice-overs, lip-synching, a trip-hop soundtrack,
pre-recorded film, cross gender casting, dance and stylized acting to
provide thematic complements to the play. . .The ambient soundscape,
mixed live, cleverly samples bits of dialogue into its loops, creating
a constant echo."---Alexis Soloski, The Village Voice (re: ROT) “[Directors]
Nichols and Leonard like to involve the actors and design team and develop
ideas through improvisation. What resulted was a surreal world of paranoia.
Video segments explored and imitated film noir, surveillance video, porn
movies, and Fritz Lang's Metropolis."---Entertainment Technology
Online (re: ROT) ---"Synaesthetic's unique productions are multilayered, in meanings
and theme as well as design. . .the work was presented in a sort of reverse
in-the-round format, with the audience sitting around cabaret tables situated
in a central square, separated from the four surrounding performance platforms
by chain link fencing. This gave the piece an urban vacant-lot quality,
and played on the sideshow aspect. . .who was
the freak being fenced off, the performers or the audience?"---Entertainment
Design Magazine (re: Ubu
2000) ABOUT SYNAESTHETIC
THEATRE COMPANY Sin-uhs-thet-ick ---adj.---Characterizes
a work of art which produces harmony out of different or opposing impulses. Founded
in 1997, Synaesthetic has created and produced six original plays for
the theatre, five of them multimedia. The productions feature precise
physical staging, dance, layers of visual information and non-linear storytelling.
Each show has also generated an original score, including sampled sound
effects and new compositions of both acoustic and electronic music. The
overall aesthetic combines images and styles from popular culture (television,
film, comic books and the Internet) with timeless stories and deconstructed
classic texts, such as Franz Kafka's The
Trial, H. G. Wells' The Invisible
Man, Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi and William Shakespeare's Hamlet. In
2000, Synaesthetic Theatre created and launched www.openthebox.net,
a cyber companion to Synaesthetic's 1999 science
fiction play Tamatebako {The Box}. This
site is an ever-evolving interactive environment which can be accessed
and explored by people all over the world, and new levels are added every
year. Each theatre production since 2000 has had an accompanying website,
often with opportunities for user input and interaction. New York Foundation
for the Arts has fiscally sponsored Synaesthetic Theatre since 2000. Synaesthetic
Theatre is an experimental collective of artists dedicated to creating
new multimedia theatre with a social conscience. As a community of creators,
our collective strives to synthesize voice, text, movement, sound, video
and visual design into a single, harmonious performance experience for
spectator and performer alike. Directors, designers and performers collaborate
in a unique process to develop each show, resulting in truly ensemble-driven
work. In this age of expanding media and isolating technology, Synaesthetic
Theatre is committed to producing original works in which intellect and
emotion function together, promoting conscious, constructive investigation
and evaluation of the world around us. |