London, Philly, and NYC offer up three very different experiences
Just what is immersive theatre anyway? Ask two people and you’ll get four different answers. Us? We believe it when we see it, and we aim to see a lot.
This week we’ve got three in-person experiences (thank the stars) that all have very different means and motives. Did they take the opportunity to slay? Read on!
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Circus In A Bottle — Trajectory Theatre
£6.50; London, UK; Run Concluded
Rebounding from a run canceled along with the rest of the VAULT Festival 2022 lineup, Circus In A Bottle uncorks for a week in the crypt of St. Peter’s Church out in Bethnal Green: far from the madding crowds but a perfect rough-hewn and intimate venue for a travel-size production.
Circus doesn’t promise three rings and a big top; instead Trajectory Theatre presents a simple premise: a table, some chairs, a suitcase, and some Magic Leap mixed reality headsets. Over the course of a half-hour our host, the Carnival Barker, opens his valise and empties the stories of a lifetime in show business while a pintsize augmented reality assistant adventures and clowns its way around the tabletop, interacting with real-life props placed around the surface.
Having encountered the Magic Leap before in the grandiose Lost Origin, what stuns and impresses me is how a project this compact secured sponsorship to play with equipment this cool. The UK arts scene is remarkably supportive to creators both big and small, and it’s heartwarming to run into Magic Leap headsets in a setting and scale which allows emerging theatermakers to experiment and push the format.
There’s limited participation — voluntary acts which give the audience some physical interactivity — and patrons who crave more agency in their theatergoing might not feel suitably engaged enough to paint Circus as true immersive work. But in a show based on XR where the experience lies in essentially ignoring the live performer half the time to follow action which isn’t physically there, these kinesthetic touch-points pull our spatial sense away from the boundaries of the room (which could be anywhere and therefore doesn’t matter) and into the cozy circle of the table, our host, and our companions’ smiles at the charming little transparent performer capering between us.
— Shelley Snyder, London Curator
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Editor’s Note: NoPro London correspondent Thomas Jancis was a part of this production. He has not had editorial input, nor has he been privy to the contents of this review before publication.
New World Rising! — Linnea Bond
$30; Philadelphia, PA, through April 10
Strolling down the alley, the voice in my ear instructs me to look to my left, to the wasteful spectacle of an old-timey gas lamp when it hits me; That’s someone’s house. There’s a perverse thrill to using the real world as your stage, and New World Rising! does it masterfully. Casting its audience of one as a newly radicalized ecoterrorist, New World Rising takes place on both your phone and over the streets of Center City Philadelphia, seeking out QR codes and dead drops while receiving texts and audio instructions from both the titular terrorist cell, and your increasingly frantic fiancé.
While writing dialogue for the terrorists, the script often slips into hysterical cries about the pillaging of the earth (although these monologues reflect both real-life ecoterrorist manifestos, and the actual urgency the global climate crisis demands), the spectacular pacing is what really sells New World Rising! There’s moments of ambling reflection through peaceful side streets, and panicked dashes down alleys. Each has its place in building a sense of doom regarding your own life, parallel to the earth’s.
The texture added by allowing for interaction in real life and your phone wildly enhances the piece. Mundane texts and pop up notifications during the increasingly frantic finale well mirrored the ways we’re all forced to keep carrying on in a world teetering towards climate apocalypse. A woman asking me for directions almost gave me a heart attack.
The message of the piece, presenting the ecoterrorists as driven towards ineffectual violence by the crushing feeling of powerlessness climate change brings, is elegant, nuanced, and well executed. New World Rising! avoids the didacticism of other plays on environmental themes to create a must see piece of kinetic theatre.
— Blake Weil, East Coast Curator at Large
Vexations in Time — Presented by The Why Collective
$10-$34; New York, NY or Remote (Website); Run Concluded
Vexations in Time is a durational experience that took over Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre this past weekend. Using Erik Satie’s one minute long piano composition Vexations as a sort of metronome for the night, this experience layers different types of performance over the repeated playing of the song over sixteen hours. Audience members were invited to roam the space which included a meditation nook in the loft above the main hall, a central stage near the piano, a bar, and access to the back garden where pop up performances also took place. The experience also included a number of asynchronous participation stations like a community painting canvas and shared journals with prompts to respond to.
Vexations in Time is a really interesting way to attempt to tackle the conundrum of durational performance — how can we ask people to be audience members and uphold the social contract of theatre for hours on end? It’s tough, and it drives a lot of folks away from durational work, but this piece set the intention that audience members are granted the freedom to explore and exist while still honoring the performance. While it was a welcome idea, it didn’t always feel like the case. During the time I spent in the experience, I felt like I couldn’t interrupt the formal performance that was happening and fell back into being an audience member, but when there wasn’t a formal performance (outside of the piano), it felt like more of a really cool coffee shop than a true experiential event. I admire the intention and ambition of the piece, but ultimately feel like it has room to grow in terms of creating synergy.
– Allie Marotta, NYC Correspondent
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