[Periodencampments] Theater or Research?

[C. Weed]

Greetings,

I'm new to this list so forgive me if I am drumming up an old subject.

Over the last few years I have noticed that many of my friends have opted to
shift from a more devil-may-care style of camp to what they call a 'period'
camp.  There seems to be,  however, two schools of thought on this: one that
maintains that the environment they keep at events conjures an *image* of
what life may have been like, and one that attempts to actually get a feel
for the way it may have actually been through the scope of what we're able
to take with us to the local State Park.  Essentially, one group treats an
SCA outing like a theater project and the other treats it like a living
history project.

An example of the theater crowd might be a group of friends here in
Ansteorra who run a tavern at events... coolers in wood boxes, kegs out of
sight, outrageous wigs and false cockney accents.  They work very hard at
painting a stage in Elizabethan gentry colors.

An example of the history crowd might be a group of friends who meet in
Calontir at big events to set up a period woodshop; hewing logs, dragging
them up to the shop, and using period tools and sweat to make more tools,
furniture, and sundry other medieval necessities.  They work very hard to
give people an accurate picture of what is involved in using those tools in
that environment.

Where do most of you here on this list stand?  I'll save my position for
later... for now, I'm curious what you lot think.

D. in Ansteorra