DC Theatre Scene: Few words strike fear into the hearts of wide swaths of the theatre-going population than ‘Audience Participation.’ But when said participation involves sipping champagne, swanning around a mansion in Dupont Circle, watching fire spinners perform in the snow, and solving puzzles with strangers, that pill becomes a lot easier to swallow. Thus is the experience created by TBD Immersive in their new interactive performance piece, Ouroboros: Dawn of the Cabaret.
2 comments:
Reading the summary of this article, I immediately thought of an episode of Modern Family, where Cam forces Mitchell to go to a poorly performed audience participation show, and ends up ruining the ending for everyone. This is what many people think of when they think of audience participation, but upon reading this article, the audience is offered a much different experience that is more consistent with what immersive shows usually are. When I think of an immersive show, I don't cringe because I usually think of these immersive entertaining experiences that come in all sorts of different forms. The talent that these actors must possess, and the discipline to be able to improv and get content from the audience is impressive, and I'm sure it would make this show very interesting and new. Each night must be different, and you could chose a different path each time, which would make it a new and exciting experience multiple times.
Another immersive theatre article! This show seems like an awesome experience. However, I think that this article touches on a really interesting point that is part of the problem of particular immersive experiences; you lose some of the story if you don’t go the “right” way. An audience member can be easily confused if they make a mistake and stop following one person and switch to another. It’s easy in an immersive environment to gravitate towards only the action, however, sometimes the most revealing moments are those intimately performed between an actor and one or two audience members. The concept for this immersive piece sounds super interesting and decently thought out. I wonder what the puzzles were like. Did solving puzzles affect the characters? Was it more like the audience choose the story, or more watching the actors and experiencing close up moments throughout the night. We’ll never know, sounds cool though.
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