Stage Directions: It seems altogether fitting that the much talked-about play Amos was performed in a former speakeasy. The jittery, unsettling drama delves deeply into a nefarious vortex of murder and deception set against the brooding backdrop of an underground EDM world in the Ukraine. Audiences are not sure who or what to believe as this troubling story unfolds, leaving them with a tingling sense of uncertainty and danger. Contributing to this uneasy mood is an eerily unsettling lighting design by Brandon Baruch.
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Immersive theatre is becoming more and more popular. I myself have been to a few. This play sounds like an abstract event I went to called Fuerza. But this was not a scripted play. Fuerza was an interactive show, it was all around you with crazy lights and loud music and interesting things to look at. It was hard to focus on anyone thing. But this seems different in that it is at the same time telling a story and an arcing point. I would find it hard to combine these to contrasting elements into a conclusive immersion. If you take away the flash and trash lighting, this sounds like Sleep No More in the way they clearly told a story all around, using every part of the room to help the story and moving the room around through the show. I, a traditional theatre goer, am not sure if I particularly like this type of theatre or not. I definitely have fun when I go but it doesn’t feel like theatre to me, more like an experience or a experiment. And yet some how not like hunted houses that to me is very much like walk through theatre. Not sure why, but I do.
I love love love how much lighting design has innovated itself even in my life time. Just the increased affordability of LED fixtures is staggering. To see such amazing designs from Brandon Brauch reminds me of how much theatre has grown. When describing his design Brauch says: "“We used lighting to immerse the audience in a sense of skewed reality,” said Baruch. “Amos is an EDM thriller. It tells the story of an American disaster tourist in Kiev who befriends, then murders and assumes the identity of an underground rave DJ. The character Amos is an unreliable narrator, and as the play progresses, the audience starts to wonder how much they can trust the story they’re being told. I wanted my design to heighten this sense of uncertainty" Just from the few pictures from the article I can tell how incredible this design is, and I can't wait to see where lighting design goes next.
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