The Room

The Room is a journey of self discovery. Part performance, part immersive installation and all audience interaction, it has been devised by Backbone Youth Theatre and The Edge (State Library of Queensland’s digital culture centre) as a commentary on the trials of finding your true path and an exploration of unusual spaces.

Part of the Scratch Series, billed as “new works-in-progress”, it’s unpolished and experimental, but the audience (mainly consisting of arts workers and students) is prepared and curious.

We start our journey low tech, collecting baggage and costumes on the way. On our travels we meet an invisible superhero doing market research, a photographer who talks about her passion for capturing “magic” and an actress preparing for her performance. Each character touches on the subject of vocation and ambition, prompting us to reflect on our own life paths.

But for all of the fun of the journey, the room itself is the star of the show. An interactive electronic playground, this space is filled with things to explore. Silent but smiling cast members give us each a brief tour, encouraging us to touch, listen to and investigate our surroundings. In one corner, our actress interacts with projected images drawn by audience members on a touch screen. In another, a girl with ambitions of becoming a newsreader announces headlines. A former aspiring ballerina demonstrates how to interact with a motion sensing display and another girl leads me in a waltz while I listen to her performance dreams through headphones.

And then we are given free rein to explore every inch of the space, to act out our childhood career fantasies or to stand back and take it all in. Some of it is confusing and some spaces seem less inviting than others, so anyone into playing it safe won’t venture past what they’ve already experienced. However, this is about pushing the boundaries between theatre and art. If approached with the right attitude, the experience will put a smile on your face.

I saw the original iteration of The Room in 2011 when it played a few small shows at The Edge. While the original feel and concept remain, both the room and the vision behind it have transformed and grown to fit the spaces of the Brisbane Powerhouse. The venue has its limitations though – the band in residence all but drowned out the first stop on our tour.

The audience are asked to do a lot of their own work, leaving some members of the group slightly bewildered at times. Or maybe that’s part of the plan, reminding us what it’s like to face a world of possibility without knowing which way our true path lies.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

The Room
By Backbone Youth Theatre and The Edge, State Library of Queensland

Brisbane Powerhouse
16–19 February 2012