Beyond the black box: creating intimate theatre through sonic immersion

Writer/director Renée Newman said the work was born out of a desire to articulate a feeling of connectedness.

‘I wanted to make a work that captured how I feel when I am at my most present, when I am engaged with the world and not only wrapped up in the speed and anxieties of life,’ Newman said.

Featuring Australian (and Whadjuk Noongar), Norwegian, Chinese, Tanzanian and Italian voices, the piece encourages the audience of one to empathise with stories of migration while also actively encouraging their imagination.

Newman was quick to add that the use of headphones in the work is far from a new idea, though she hopes audiences will find fresh insights through the piece. 

‘Performance has always used technology – in the 19^th century it was electric light and today it is communication mediums such as iPhones and audio devices,’ she explained. ‘The trend for walking performance has a history across site-based and site-specific performance traditions – from Wrights & Sites to Janet Cardiff and many more,’ she said.

Artist James Berlyn said his show, yourseven, also uses non-traditional performance modes to intimately draw the audience into Shakespeare’s world via an Elizabethan soundtrack.

‘I like work that doesn’t always have to be based on suspension of disbelief and a proscenium arch theatre setting,’ Berlyn told ArtsHub.

Originally intended to be presented by Perth Theatre Company in 2015, before the cancellation of the two remaining works in the season and the company’s closure, yourseven guides individual audience members through Shakespeare’s ‘seven ages of man’ (a concept explored in a monologue in As You Like It) via multiple photo booth encounters with a series of silent actors. 

Read: Final curtain falls on Perth Theatre Company  

Each audience member experiences the performance on their own, and again, headphones play a key role in the work.

‘Being a one-on-one performance, the show is intimate and meditative; the use of headphones affords the audience the opportunity to dive deeply into their own worlds and reflect on the provocations of each of the eight, one-on-one encounters they will have throughout their journey through the show,’ said Berlyn.

Contemplation is a thematic concern of both productions. In Newman’s work, it’s the act of walking that prompts the audience to consider how important movement is in life.

‘The work links ideas of movement with stories of migration; it asks the audience to slow down, imagine that their bodies are forever moving through space and time, and imagine how we can learn to be compassionate because of this shared human quality,’ she said.

‘I hope the audience leaves feeling reflective and questioning; if we are always moving what does that mean for those who are forced to move? Walking, in this way, with a soundtrack on ideas of movement and migration is a performance about bringing the world in a little closer; to spend a little while focusing on what it takes to keep moving – to struggle, hope and survive.’

Berlyn anticipates that audiences will experience a sense of transformation, of immersion and stepping into another world.

‘I hope they will take away an experience of having walked bodily through Shakespeare’s “seven ages of man” concept. Perhaps it will open up an opportunity for them to take a look at their life’s journey as it has so far happened and as it is yet to come within the framework of what, for many, is a somewhat jaundiced or perhaps vexatious summation of life,’ he said.

Seeking basic needs and other tales of excess runs from 27 January – 17 February 2018, and yourseven from 2-17 February 2018. Visit pica.org.au and fringeworld.com.au for details.