the Playfilm

by Katerina Curtis

I devised the term ‘playfilm’ because I wanted to study the interaction between being and exposing (a story about being) from two different creative angles.  The visible conscious and the invisible subconscious, or in other words, the limited stage and the unlimited screen.

What fascinated me about making a playfilm, was the various messages that could be put across in one single live performance.  Showing not just a play, but also a film about the play or about the heroes’ subconscious, provides the creative process of story structure, rehearsals and delivery, with an immense wealth of decisions and interpretations.

Watching it, is as enriching as creating it. Judging from the reactions and reviews of the audiences in the last two playfilms, the general feeling is that the spectators are taken through a powerful rollercoaster of emotional, verbal and mental intensity, amusing and mind-stretching visuals and a multi-layered musical ensemble.

Decoding and unleashing the subconscious is at the best of times, challenging.  On stage, the actors are finding themselves interacting with their alter ego on screen, defying their own actions and feelings and portraying the linear plot.  On screen, the film exposes the protagonists’ innermost secrets, their real desires and hidden truths.   Such is the complexity of the interaction that we often see the film running ahead of the plot, pairing with the audience themselves, making them accomplices to the unfolding story and conspirators to the actors’ reality.