On Stage
Poking friends is easy on Facebook. All it requires is a simple click of a mouse, and without leaving the sanctity of your office, bedroom, kitchen nook or coffee-shop enclave, you can let that special someone know you’re thinking about them.
In fact, for those looking to communicate in a nonverbal manner, Facebook is the place to be. With more than 500 million active users, there’s a good chance at least one or more of your real-world friends are hunched over their computers—or sidled up to their oh-so-intelligent cell phones—at any given moment, just waiting for a missive that will let them know someone’s thinking about them.
But for others, such as Bellingham Children’s Theatre founder Drue Robinson, Facebook isn’t so much a necessity as it is a curiosity. As a playwright and director who still remembers producing plays on a typewriter with wadded-up first drafts piling up behind her, she says although she’s grateful for the many advances in modern technology, she gets frustrated with having to constantly relearn things as computer programs get upgraded and cell phones get progressively brainier.
With her new play, Poke•Chat•Friend, Robinson and her Viewpoints Theatre Ensemble troupe are exploring the good, bad and ugly sides of interacting on the Internet.
“Ever since Facebook came into being, I have grown more and more curious about the state of people’s personal interactions with one another,” Robinson says. “I gathered together ensemble members who wanted to approach the subject of technology and how it has affected our interpersonal relationships, and we began digging up statistics, asking friends about their technological experiences and researching the upside and downside of online connection.”
Using her Viewpoints training—a process she says is akin to “brainstorming with your body”—Robinson and her theatrical cohorts started researching the phenomena last October. After putting the project on hold while the Bellingham Children’s Theatre produced The Wutcraker last December, they’ve been rehearsing since January and already have a weekend of performances under their belts.
“Many audience members have said that we give a pretty balanced perspective on the amazingly wonderful things brought about by technology, as well as illustrating some of the horrors that can occur,” Robinson says. “The show has a quirky, smart, personal melange of statistics and personal stories. We’ve had more than a few people tell us that they’ve come away from the show reassessing their own relationships to their technological devices.”
Basically, Robinson says, Poke•Chat•Friend is asking viewers whether they own—or are owned by—their various technological devices. The answers, she says, might surprise you.
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