Bad Theater, Bad Powerpoint

Comic by Hugh Macleod.  Check him out and support him here.

Bad theater is like bad Powerpoint.

It is a presentation platform, not the presentation itself.  Like bad Powerpoint, bad theater confuses the two.  Instead of focusing on a solid narrative that engages an audience on an emotional and intellectual level, bad theater worries about putting it all onstage, cluttering a simple construct in hopes that the mere weight of excess of words (or blocking, etc.) will literally give the production gravitas.

Bad theater uses the stock templates available, or else settles for a bare stage because it’s the easy choice, not because it’s the most aesthetic choice. 

Bad theater goes nuts with bullet pointing moments.  Bad theater uses bells and whistles for the sake of bells and whistles.

Good Powerpoint and good theater will give you a single image—a single moment—to focus on, while the narrative spills over you.  It takes you on a journey to enlightenment; every seeming digression pushing you along.

Bad Powerpoint is displayed.  Good Powerpoint is conveyed.  So it is with theater.