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Technology in Bosto

Posted by DCA Theater on August 26, 2010 in July-December 2010 Season, INCUBATOR Series: Thirteen Pocket

by Jeff Phillips, playwright for Bosto script as part of XIII Pocket Incubator

In developing Bosto the offstage sounds are becoming huge to the script, at points serving as some of the major events to drive the story.  Which is certainly challenging.  The way the offstage voices, the eavesdropped conflict from the floors below are taken on a misshapen texture in the latest re-write.  Originally they came through clear as day, but I have since worked them to come through diluted, creating more confusion in the character, and more mystery to the spectator.  So the art of the sound design has become pivotal, as the way it is contorted as though it is really resounding through intricate ductwork, is almost an extension of the set design.  As well I have developed a television show within the staging, as another background noise which parallels some of the themes of the on stage action.  Certainly there will be a lot of technical cues in the execution of the play.  In some ways, I feel a bit of a cop out relying so much on the external forces to move the piece a long, like a warped little deus ex machina, but at the same time, given the perspective of the characters Melbourne and Barry, and the world they are trying to understand on a “micro” level as well as “macro” it is highly important to me to keep it and develop it to the most effective specificity. It’s easy as a playwright to jump ahead and think about staging, but as I pondered in a previous post, at what point to stop worrying about how to pull the script off, and just focus on the story. 

I’d say this has been a particular challenge to me working on Bosto, being my first full length play.  Coming from writing novellas (Turban Tan & Whiskey Pike) where it really is about the story and the text, playwrighting is very much its own craft, being a medium for the live presentation of story and behavior.  Earlier drafts of Bosto are very much stuck in ideology and big part of its development and continuing development is heighten what’s at steak between the characters in each scene, so that it does translate into interesting, live behavior.