Pittsburgh’s Town Theatre revisits 25-yr-outdated enjoy exploring media, technology

Pittsburgh’s Town Theatre revisits 25-yr-outdated enjoy exploring media, technology

Town Theatre in Pittsburgh is bringing back a participate in that initial appeared on its stage 25 decades in the past.

“The Medium,” a postmodern deconstruction of the musings of author/thinker Marshall McLuhan, will operate from Jan. 22 as a result of Feb. 13 on the City Theatre Principal Stage on Pittsburgh’s South Aspect.

The 3rd present of the 2021-22 membership season is presented by New York Town-dependent SITI Business.

“The production was initially produced in 1993 and conceived to discover the then-burgeoning discipline of technologies by means of the lens of Marshall McLuhan,” mentioned Anne Bogart, SITI Organization co-creative director, who conceived the engage in. “We observe the renowned Canadian philosopher of media scientific studies on an Alice in Wonderland-like journey as a result of the landscape of his profound insights about the outcomes of media upon the human working experience.

“Now, just about 30 many years later on, the enjoy seems even more pertinent to the world that we inhabit right now than it did when we first created it,” she claimed.

Initial noticed at Town Theatre in 1996, “ ‘The Medium’ explores the impact of media and emerging technologies on our perceptions, our psyches, and our private life,” according to a release.

“ ‘The Medium’ is structured on the perfectly-known narrative structure of ‘the hero’s journey,’ which can be identified in tales and fairy tales from all-around the entire world and all over heritage,” Bogart explained. “Our hero is based mostly on the fantastic Canadian thinker Marshall McLuhan who, in the 1960s, was able to predict what would transpire to us when the media, digital technological innovation and the online would dominate our life.”

By the tv screen

In a bewildered point out right after struggling a stroke, the character of McLuhan finds himself transported, like “Alice By way of the Looking Glass,” into the earth of tv.

Not able to speak, McLuhan “moves from channel to channel, dealing with firsthand the success of his worst and most insightful dreams,” Bogart reported.

“The scenes in ‘The Medium’ are offered in the form of television genres, like vintage kinds like a Western, a hospital drama, a recreation exhibit, a loved ones exhibit, a chat show and so on,” she extra. “Each genre variety features as a container for different insights and themes from Marshall McLuhan’s writings. McLuhan himself, our principal character, travels as a result of this Tv set landscape.”

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Courtesy of SITI Firm

Will Bond will seem in the SITI Company production of “The Medium,” Jan. 22-Feb. 13 at City Theatre in Pittsburgh.

 

Directed by Bogart, “The Medium” features performers William Bond, Gian-Murray Gianino, Ellen Lauren, Barney O’Hanlon, Violeta Picayo and Stephen Duff Webber.

“One can see the irony in the simple fact that this prescient thinker, who spoke and wrote so eloquently and playfully on the media and culture, need to go through the lack of ability to converse,” Bond stated. “In this way, just one may possibly call him a present day-day Cassandra

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