Author Archives: Carol Reid

Hey, thanks for agreeing to be interrogated—can you give us some history on the origin of DNA and the “theatre of the invisible”?

I grew up in the “radio era” listening to the BBC and various European stations which didn’t come in all that clearly but were a fascinating babble of foreign tongues and white noise. That had an influence on my electronic music…and of course listening to drama–especially in bed, before falling asleep–also had an influence. My first stage plays in the 1960s were “theatre of the absurd” bizzaro narratives, and one I wrote had a series of taped voices to which the live actor responded. Then I sort of backed into “theatre of the invisible” by writing a play based on a movie with no picture. The idea is both mechanical and metaphysical. So the audience would be in the dark, just listening to a montage of monologues and dialogues, just like a bad dream, tasteless and funny as dreams often are. It was called Black Movie, and caused a controversy when it was first “staged” here in Victoria…especially when certain members of the audience couldn’t exit in the dark. The Factory Theatre in Toronto loved it, ran it at one of their festivals in 1971.

DNA followed this…the notion of developing an oral literature, and breaking away from the institutional channels of publishing…lit mags, big city book merchants. Tape recording was accessible, and tapes easily copied. So it was a tape exchange for the hippie era…anticipated the anarchy of the Internet and the “free” MP3 swapping. So that’s how I do it these days via my website Culture Court. Broadband digital is a great and wondrous thing! Continue reading →