Conversations on Conversations

So the last few weeks we have been rehearsing and performing a new play: Conversations From The Web. It's still running (until August 12) if you'd like to come. It's a tough one because there's a large part of the play where people sit on their phones. And that makes people uncomfortable.

Here's the thing: it's supposed to.

This play is taken from real life. It's actual conversations held online. The nature of the conversations shows how self-absorbed people are. Everyone is talking about themselves and no one listens to each other. These actually happened (though I did combine people together and put events that were unrelated into one story.)

People have said, “If you know people like this then they are assholes.”

The thing is...we are all like this. Online. No one is like this in real life because everyone is socialized to pay attention to each other in real life. We don't have this type of thing online. Everyone talks about themselves. Everyone.

To top it off, we are always on our phones. Technology is so advanced that we can't go without them. We use them for everything and we'd rather be addicted to them than talking to other people. It happens all the time. And we are losing our social interaction...the thing that makes us human. This fascination with Social Media is something that seems to be huge in the Camden Fringe this year. There are plays like Fe-mail and The Social Notwork and other plays obsessed with online dating etc.. Social Media is amazing, yes. But it is also dangerous...we are running dangerously close to losing the way we interact. I hope we don't lose this but if we do, let's hope there's something else that will keep us human because frankly I'm worried about what will happen if it goes.

I'm really proud of Aequitas for looking at this issue and exploring it and I hope that Conversations From The Web has an extended run and changes things in this world for the better. As an artist, that's all I can hope for. But even if it doesn't, I think we need to remember to look each other in the eye and listen to each other and pay attention to the world instead of a screen in front of us. I'm aware that this is going on the internet and therefore makes this whole blog ironic...there's a time and a place for being online. There's a time and a place for Social Media. It's not all bad. There are wonderful things about it (we explore some of these in the play too). But it also is a cause of some horrific things: screen addiction, lack of interaction, depression, body image issues, etc.). We need to rethink things as a society and think about the implications of instant gratification. Keep having those Conversations about the play! That's what it's for!

Rachael Bellis Writer (Conversations From The Web)