Reminiscent of the ancient bards and storytellers, Kyle decamp told the story of her childhood in Chicago with reference to the Urban Renewal project, which just so happens to be the title of this performance. The Urban Renewal project displaced a vast amount of small businesses and low-income families in Chicago in order to take land for government projects. Watching their home be demolished and being forced to relocate, deCamp and her family were victims of this government program.
Kyle deCamp conveyed her message through the view in which she experienced these events in the 1960s – through the eyes of a child. Injecting a comedic flavor into the piece by making jokes about her older sister Susan and making confused faces after her dad would tell her something profound, Kyle deCamp captured and held the attention of the audience from the beginning of her performance until the end with her playful, child-like attitude.
In this performance, deCamp makes use of multimedia devices in order to appeal to the visual and auditory senses of her audience. She did so by using sounds to set the scene or to make sound effects and also by using two projectors – one that projected an image on the screen behind her and one that projected a different image on the screen below her. She used the screen behind her as scenery shots and to display facts related to the Urban Renewal Project, and deCamp used the screen below her to help illustrate her story – like when she was explaining the floor plan of her house, for example.
Earning herself not one but two rounds of applause, Kyle deCamp put on a show with flair and gave a powerful performance. She held the attention of her audience throughout the performance with her use of her own comedic skills as well as visual and auditory effects. Although it was not what I expected, I must say that I enjoyed seeing deCamp’s Urban Renewal because it was both an entertaining and educational experience that enlightened me about a refreshing form of art I had never even heard about before – theatre art, telling a story through both acting and art.
-John Wetmore (Blog A)
