A first-time ever collaboration between a professional theater and a technological university to utilize virtual reality technology was unveiled at the Foothills Theatre in Worcester, Mass. on March 8 with the production of The Story of Dr. Faust. This will also be a world premier of a new play written by Foothills Theatre executive producer and artistic director Marc P. Smith who adapted the story from various sources. The play will run through March 29.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute's Theatre and Technology Program is pioneering the use of technology with virtual reality. They first utilized this technology in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in November 1996 when they modeled worlds within the computer and projected them on stage. A refinement of these techniques was used in a recent WPI production of Medea/Media where the technical crew created an extensive texture library as well as various scenes.
WPI's technique differs from traditional virtual reality programs, which place the audience in the virtual world. WPI's approach places the actors in the virtual worlds by using them as an extension of the "virtual world" of the stage set. Dean O'Donnell, an affiliate instructor of Drama and Theatre at WPI and initiator of the WPI program, refers to WPI's approach as "augmented fantasies."
The Faust legend and folklore began in Germany during the Middle Ages and first appeared in literature in 1587. According to this narrative Faust made a pact with the devil, called Mephistopheles, by the terms of which the devil increased Faust's knowledge of magic and also gave him 24 years of pleasure and power, after which Faust's soul was to belong to the devil. Noted writers Christopher Marlowe, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Thomas
Mann and others all produced works about Faust. Charles Gounod's Faust, one of the more popular operas in the world, follows the story line of Faust selling his soul to the devil in return for transforming the aged scholar into a young man and satisfying his longing for pleasure. Gounod's Faust develops a romantic relationship between Faust and the innocent Marguerite.
For the Faust production, O'Donnell with the assistance of two WPI students, Mike Darling and Steven Hocurszak, developed three worlds. The first world will demonstrate that Faust is a great magician by showing him flying over the city of Wittenberg. O'Donnell will populate the city with digital people who will look up and see Faust flying. The technical crew will utilize drawings and photos of Wittenberg in the augmented fantasies.
The second virtual world will take Faust from Wittenberg to the palace of Charles V in Vienna.
Faust will be taken down for the third world where the stage will be shown running with blood.
"Foothills Theatre presents some challenges," says O'Donnell. "The theater is smaller and the computer projector will be closer to the screen measuring 12 feet wide by 18 feet tall." The WPI students, Darling and Hocurszak, will run the virtual worlds during all the performances.
Writer and director Smith noted that "of all the mysteries of the universe, among the most intriguing are the questions surrounding the fate of individual human beings. Is there an afterlife? If so, what part do the ideas of good and evil, reward and punishment, and restraint and temptation play in this penultimate conundrum?" "The Story of Dr. Faust is able to deal with these questions," says Smith, "because it accepts the central concept of each person's having a soul, and therefore responsibility and ownership of his or her deeds. Could there be anything more frightening?" Smith's challenge as a writer was to take ideas and questions from the original Book of Faust and from the many interpretations over the years to make a play that was comprehensible to a contemporary audience without losing its fascination, terror, and intriguing puzzles.