The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘The end of TV’ — or is it?
Multimedia show beams messages about medium’s past, present
NEW HAVEN » One may anticipate that the show “The End of TV,” which runs tomorrow through Wednesday at The University Theatre as part of the Festival of Arts & Ideas, is a eulogy to the small screen. Not necessarily, said Kyle Vegter, who, with Ben Kauffman, wrote “The End of TV.”
“I’d been reading some Oliver Sachs,” said Vegter, referring to the British neurologist and author, “and it’s really interesting how he described some of his patients’ realities and how (perception) shapes each person and how it sometimes disagrees with what everybody else agreed on as reality. “
TV, Vegter said, plays a significant role in shaping that perception.
“The way that TV, particularly American TV, helps shape ourselves and the rest of the world” is explored, said Vegter, who, along with Kauffman, are two of five artistic directors of Manual Cinema, the company putting on the show.
Based in Chicago, Manual Cinema employs music, shadow puppets and projected video clips to tell stories in multimedia fashion.
“We think of our work as imitating cinema and really using the language of cinema,” Vegter said. “So a close-up means we’re having a really introspective moment with our character. With a far shot, we’re introducing a location or idea. We use that language rather than spoken dialogue.
“With this piece, we wanted to use the language of quick cuts, and advertisements, and sort of a high-energy feel that TV uses, as opposed to cinema,” he added.
The backbone of “The End of TV,” which Arts & Ideas commissioned, is a song cycle composed by Vegter and Kauffman. Through group collaboration with other Manual Cinema company members — directors, puppeteers, musicians and projection and sound designers — the show explores how we digest everything seen on the tube since the first DuMont sets were fuzzy, black and white pups.
The process, as Vegter and Kauffman described it, starts with the writers poring over copious research. They then craft a story from their findings.
“I guess we call them screenplays, but they’re a little bit different than normal screenplays because we have very little dialogue in our pieces,” Vegter said. “It’s basically describing what happens in the story — what it looks like.”
Vegter and Kaufman chew over their treatment with the other artistic directors — Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace and Julia Miller (who directs “The End of TV”) — and revise their script several times.
“After we’ve agreed on a version of the screenplay, Julia, the director of this piece, went away and storyboarded it, just like you would a film — basically drew out every scene in the story we wrote,” Vegter said. “This piece is formed around a song cycle. Ben and I wrote the songs pretty early in the process and Julia had the songs with her when she storyboarded the piece.
“At that point, we started building the puppets based on the storyboard and really put the show on its feet in a room with actors,” Vegter said. “That stage of the process is super revealing because something that sounded great in a screenplay, and looked really great on the storyboard, once you get it on its feet, it does not read in the specific shadow puppet medium that we use.”
Kaufman, who plays keyboards and guitar during the performance, said that soon the other musicians — a cellist, violinist and flutist — join the process. Singers, often adding three- and four-part harmonies, join the mix.
“We use actual clips from commercials, TV shows,” Kauffman said, “so the puppeteers sometimes mouth the words that you hear.
Synchronizing all these elements is a challenge. Manual Cinema makes it easier by using mostly the same company members since its debut in 2010.
“Most of our performers (musicians and puppeteers) have been with us pretty much since the beginning,” Kauffman said, adding that the directors may hire new talent to fill certain roles not tailored to the company’s 30 or 40 usual suspects.
What, then, is the significance of the title, “The End of TV”?
“I think we want the audience to answer that question for themselves,” Vegter said. “I don’t think there’s one reason the title works; there’s many. I will say that a big part of it, at least at the initial phases of the project, had to do with the creation of the internet. That’s still a big part of the show.”
“Part of the reason the title is thought-provoking,” said Kauffman, “is that the internet has come about in the last 15 or 20 years or so. What is this new medium giving us, and how do we put it in context with what has come before it? A lot of the legacy of TV winds up on the internet as well.”
“For me,” Vegter said, “a lot of what the show’s about is, how did we get here? How did America get to where it is today?
“I think advertising and the corporate owners of our imagination, if you will, through advertising culture,” he said, “have a lot to do with that.”