Moment Work Review 10/17/19

The Tectonic Theater Project created Moment Work which is the “I begin…. I end” structure that our class explored a little the other day. Instead of just focusing on text, the actors, directors, etc. focus on creating moments where the audience and everyone can feel the impact.  These moments are the new that will be remembered the most after the performance. Moment work is extremly cringey and unbenifical. It reduces the amount of emtion and mental inetsity acting SHOULD have. It skips the steps of understandig why we act the way we act. In my opinion, these skipped steps cannot be skipped if anyone in the prodcution team wants a good and impactful performance.
 I personally am not fond of Moment Work. I don’t find the activity for Moment Work natural in the slightest nor helpful. As I was reading about the Tectonic Theater Project’s opinions on realism in theater, I collected that the idea of it was not seen very fondly. I don’t understand why. There is something about realism that can bring absurdity.  Having a normal conversation on stage between two people can help build context and emotions, and that will allow for a moment to build into something memorable. Why would just abruptly performing the moment be beneficial at all? It seems unbeneficial and the audience will most likely read it as cheesy and cliche. 
The Tectonic Theater Project also argued that theater is lacking theatrical aspects lately. I am not sure what they mean by this. Do they want more cliches? Or awkwardness? I, if I am looking at this through a Director’s lesne, would definitely not want that. It made me cringe to see people in the videos I watched perform this Moment Work. Context is not a bad thing, and building emotions up and releasing them to create that BIG MOMENT is not a bad thing. 
I would prefer not to explore Moment Work any further in all honesty. It is not a practice that seems beneficial for actors if they want the audience to actually FEEL things. If the goal is just to watch something and not feel any actual impact then Moment Work is the way to go. I would never see the purpose of that though, not even in Brechtian work.

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