Robert Reid

Chris Lynch replied 3 years, 5 months ago

Really enjoyed this review, thanks Robert–also Alison’s which I managed to read somehow. I’m glad I saw this show, not least because it made me think about what I’m looking for in an “immersive theatre experience”.

I saw ‘A Midnight Visit’ in Sydney a few years ago, and on reflection, though I had many criticisms of that show, I think it was on the whole more successful, though less ambitious in many ways than this one. That show was also melodramatic, though that didn’t bother me much in either case (Jennifer Vuletic’s Gertrude was the clear standout here, in a strangely shouty cast performing intimately in the round). But ‘A Midnight Visit’ was more poetic, in the sense that it didn’t care about telling a story and was more about resonant moments with various ghost or ghost-like characters–like the mysterious figures who did actually have one-on-one interactions with me as I wandered the periphery.

This show, with the Hamlet-inspired plot, the hints of a complex backstory about a logging town, the Aussie vernacular (“You need to start stepping up, Hamlet”), the diverse styles of the rooms, and the maze-like feel of everything, promised intriguing depth but like you I didn’t feel like I got to experience it, and I suspect that it wouldn’t be there on a second visit–the notes and details I examined were not as solid as ‘A Midnight Visit’. In this case I suspect a cast twice as large would’ve made it all a lot more interesting.

I think I want to pay more (like as much as double) for a longer experience with more depth. Something more like an escape room, where you explore and learn and slowly get introduced to a dramatic world that does finally come to a close, but where knowledge is rewarded and influences the scenes that you see. Or where the audience is divided into “teams” in some way that has an impact on how everyone experiences the performance–some way that your choices matter, more than just the randomness of wandering around. At one point in this show a character went into a secret room with a coded lock, and I opened it with a number in a fairly obvious place. The other audience members present spontaneously applauded, and we went into the secret room, where the actor shouted at us in the confined space and then left. But–like the black corridor room mentioned–it didn’t really add anything.

In many ways the best immersive theatre I’ve seen was a Melbourne Fringe Fest show in an actual sharehouse where the audience was repeatedly divided by choice and by ushers into rooms with set scenes–you didn’t get to see everything, but the intimacy was a lot more charged. Eventually I ended up by myself in the candle-lit bathroom listening to a black widow–immersed in the bathtub monologuing about her dead mother–who subtly invited me to sprinkle her in rose petals. Now that’s what I’m looking for. I completely agree with your final point that we’re yet to see the best of immersive theatre.

Samsara replied 3 years, 11 months ago

How interesting Rob. My copy of red square included a review written by me and the congratulatory theatre scene was filled with my head. I wonder if they manage to do this for everyone who buys a copy or just reviewers…?
Roslyn Oades replied 3 years, 11 months ago

Wow – yes, I had a crowd of my own head in my copy of Red Square – very cool /creepy that they did this for every one!! Very inventive work, quite like nothing I’ve seen before. A perfectly surreal little lockdown piece…

@robertr