A novel tells us a story, while a play shows us a story, but what if those were somehow tied together? The goal of the Chamber Theatre method is to take narrative fiction and turn it into theatre, with all the theatrical elements intact, but without sacrificing any necessary narrative qualities. Chamber Theatre explores the relationship of the narrator to the audience and to the other characters of the play. Having the narrator be able to jump from the time and place of the audience to the characters’ time and place and back creates another complex dynamic. The narrator can zoom in and out of the characters’ situations and reveal details to the audience that the spectators could not otherwise see; thus, the narrator can serve as a sort of camera. The audience can choose to take the narrator’s word, or not, for something he or she reveals to them. Regarding style, the narrator may adopt a character’s diction or physicality to describe their inner thoughts and feelings. This approach dramatizes the narrator’s point of view and relates it to the action, setting, or character. One way to accomplish the goals of Chamber Theatre would be to use a “mirror” technique. For example, if a character stood to one side of a mirror and the narrator stood on the other, and then the character moved in front of the mirror while the narrator said, “her hair was more voluptuous than ever,” the relationship between the narrator and character would become dynamic. 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Chamber Theatre also reflects aspects of Epic Theatre, articulated most famously by Bertolt Brecht. Epic Theatre destroys the illusion of the fourth wall, and this destruction allows the actors to communicate and interact with the audience as much or as little as they wish. The actor exists onstage as both character and actor; in this way, the actor has the capacity to demonstrate aspects of the character in ways that draw the audience’s critical interest. In Epic Theatre, as well as in Chamber Theatre, the audience knows that they are watching a play in a theatre space. The scenery and lighting can help activate the imagination. Chamber Theatre arose from novels and other narrative forms. Since novels and stories tend to have expansive settings in terms of depicting many different places within the same piece, Chamber Theatre can fit within Epic Theatre’s practice of using generalized stage pieces (as opposed to detailed unit sets) with intricate verbal descriptions to create the scenes fully for the audience. With the detail provided by the narrator, the scenery becomes what was verbally described, while the audience is aware that it is not fully fleshed out physically onstage. In this respect, Brecht believed in not pretending that the scene onstage depicted a neutral reality itself; he also believed in the value of the audience seeing all lighting sources on the stage to avoid any “unwarranted illusions.” Lighting can help set a mood, he granted, but he also thought that it should not come from somewhere unseen. 

        

 

 

 

 

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Failure: A Love Story by Philip Dawkins contains a multitude of key elements from Chamber Theatre laid out above. Narrators (or in this play’s case, a chorus) help reveal the stories of the Fail family, often mirroring them in several situations. This mirroring is especially evident in our own production at Loyola, given the way that we have tied the narrators to the characters. The lack of a fourth wall and the zooming in and out of characters and situations are both alive and well in Dawkins’ extraordinary play. Our production also follows the scenic traditions of Epic Theatre and Chamber Theatre, creating the spaces with simple items that complement complex descriptions. Failure: A Love Story is without a doubt worth reading, and Loyola’s production of it is definitely worth seeing. Together, we have accomplished Chamber Theatre’s goal of tying the reading and seeing aspects of a story together, so come see Failure: A Love Story and experience the results of our approach for yourself.