HowlRound Theatre Commons: “So,” Erin Mee asks the assembled company, “What is this piece about?” As members begin to proffer answers, I try to make sense of my own reaction to Theatre in the Dark: Carpe Diem, a new play from This Is Not a Theatre Company. The New York–based company—of which I’ve been a member for about a year—has created a work with an equally engaging and challenging premise: audiences are asked to put blindfolds on outside of the playing space before being led in to a table, and once seated they are loosely guided to taste and smell a number of foods and scents by the performers as they listen to a pre-recorded text. The text is largely drawn from existing poetry, but there is also original writing from Charles Mee, Erin Mee, and Jessie Bear. For an audience member, it is a warm, intimate, and slightly psychedelic experience.
5 comments:
This whole “Theatre in the Dark” concept is brilliant in both the meaning and practical fabrication of the performance. Non-visual stimuli can often be lost in the excitement of the visuals on stage, they’re more of a subconscious experience. I know that in Waitress they pumped pie aroma into the theatre, and when I saw Once on this Island, one of the actors actually pan-fried a dish during the ‘pre-show’. Though these things enhanced the experience at all, the focus remained on the visuals that the audience could see—the other senses were auxiliary. The fact that Theatre in the Dark takes away the sense of sight and shifts the focus to taste and smell is so intriguing, especially in relation to the message of carpe diem. Focusing on these things in the moment really takes seizing the day to a more personal level. I’m really glad that this article dives into the world of multi sensory theatre in an attempt to make theatre more accessible for patrons with disabilities. I’m so glad that as theatre evolves with a changing and more accepting world, that production companies create inclusive opportunities.
The idea of theater in the dark is an interesting one to me, because it is something we so often fight in traditional theater. We are always trying to get actors to find their light and to figure out ways of incorporating light into our work. Lighting has become an almost integral part of what we do, and it is hard to imagine theater today without it. As soon as we began to move theater inside, we started to try to find ways of keeping as much natural light out so that we could have full control over what light was being seen. We even have rooms called black boxes that we work in! This is an interesting form of theater because of all of these reasons and especially for the fact that it allows blind or visually impaired artists to have more of a say and impact on the work we do. This article reminds me of the playground piece last year about the competing pizza joints in Pittsburgh where it was all about the taste and smell and not your sight. Sensory deprivation and sensory overload both have a very interesting part in theater that I think should be explored more.
I am always in awe when I read about This is Not a Theatre Company’s work. They continue to challenge their audiences in ways that traditional theatre, and sometimes even immersive theatre does not do. Theatre in the Dark; Carpe Diem, is a show in which audience members are blind folded before entering the playing space. The show itself is audience members being seated at a table in the dark and being fed foods while listening and hearing old poetry and some new poetry. The whole point of this show? To show audiences how to live every moment fully, even the smallest of moments. If anything, this show is proving to audiences that the smallest of moment deserved to be lives as fully as the biggest of moments. Erin Mee is challenging audiences with creating multi-sensory theatre experiences - something I hope I get to create someday as well. My playing with sensory experience, a more diverse audience can be brought into the room.
I read this article as someone who would hate to do this in real life as immersive theatre scares me to a large degree and I am so glad that I did because my usual biggest question about immersive theatre that I see is what is this about besides being cool and different. It was great to hear the answer from the choreographer, Johnathan Matthews, about creating a personal intimate experience. I was just reading another article about how immersive theatre a lot the time is just trying to be cool and different without really needing to be immersive and it was great to read about how this experience actually thought about its need to be immersive. Something else really cool that this article touches on is the Theatre in the Dark’s origin story of coming out of theatre for the blind. I found this cool because I think immersive or new different forms of theatre are the way to bring equity to the audience. I love sitting down for a really intense 3-hour sit-down show but this isn’t realizable for everyone and I think types of immersive theatre might bring a solution to the lack of audience equity.
This may be some people's cup of tea, but I am assuming that is not the case for a lot of people. If the overall aim of this piece was about getting people to understand what it is like to experience theatre, or even simply the world, as a visually impaired person, I would be all for it. But if it is just about seizing the day, this is a bit much and I think there are other ways to go about it than feeding people while they are blindfolded or whispering in a blindfolded stranger's ear. But then again, if you are attending this "performance" then you may be into this sort of stuff. I guess this can be a bit thrilling. It is reminding me of haunted houses- one where they are actually allowed to touch you. I must say, this is very strange. But for art's sake, right on to whoever thought of this...
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