Taking drama a stage further

• Source: Global Times
• [09:35 July 22 2010]
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Little Relevance

This was when director Stebbings realized that some of the audience members couldn't understand the first scene which is set in a bar.

In Shakespeare's original play the 10-minute scene involves a drunken worker being duped into believing he is actually a nobleman but it seems to have little relevance with the later themes of the play which deal with men and women in love and the conflicts between them.

"As a result, I went away and thought about the response and we cut the whole sequence the next day. Suddenly the play was easy to understand and started more quickly as a dream of 1930s' Shanghai," said Stebbings.

Watching the play a second time at a live performance in the theater, Wu was thrilled at the alteration which he thinks made the comedy flow more naturally.

If the jokes were not working they were changed. Another major change saw a long joke in a wedding scene cut completely.

"We all enjoyed creating the joke but when I watched the audience I found they were not laughing as much as we had in rehearsal," said Stebbings. "We found the joke was too long and made the wedding harder to follow."

The actors in the play also enjoyed the experiment. "For a long time we rehearsed without any feedback from outsiders. Jokes can easily become boring after they are repeated frequently," said Ding Meiting, one of the actresses.

"However, I enjoyed keeping an eye on the test audiences' reactions when performing, waiting for the moments when they showed their enjoyment."

The online community also became involved in The Taming of the Shrew: one theater lover noted there were 346 occasions of laughter throughout the two-and-a-half hour performance.

The test audiences also offered other bits of advice about stage props, costumes and lines and opinions both favorable and critical, all of which were welcomed by Stebbings.

He was suitably flattered that most of the responses praised the production. One audience member suggested preview test audiences could be used for tragedies as well.

At TNT Stebbings coined the word "audiencentric" which is about theater that puts the audience at the center.

"Theater is live, and we should remember to listen to the audience. I don't mean just give them easy things but go on a journey together - even if it is a difficult journey," said Stebbings. "Preview audiences are part of that."

Wu Jia, the marketing director of SDAC and the preview audience planner, thinks it was a good attempt at bridging the gap between watching and performing: "If there are any similar productions, we will use preview audiences again to help us perfect the play together."