Last year, I got excited by a wave of plays that were "immersive". Bored by scripts, bloated by too many classic authors only slightly re-imagined, I loved the chance to splash around inside the show, sometimes even getting to join in.
Witness Theatre have The Darkroom. Written by Ellen Carr, it is set in a shed and trawls through the memories of an old man. Citing Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, and using the conceit of archivists attempting to piece together a life lost, it offers a blend of "visual, auditory and olfactory sensory landscapes to create a multimedia theatrical experience." I'm in. "Our tagline is “the creation of a world” and this is exactly what we mean when we describe our work as immersive," explains Carr. "The shows we make don’t just portray the world of the storythey are telling, but they actually create this world for an audience to be immersed in. Now this may mean having a very open space that the audience explores (the large scale side of immersive) but it doesn’t have to, and with The Darkroom it certainly doesn’t. What it does mean is that no matter what the theatre set up the audience feels they have entered another world the moment they enter our space, a world they are submersed in for the duration of the performance and hopefully even for sometime after."
Although I love having a nice large space to explore (last year, Hotel Medea gave me most of Summerhall to wander around), the more intimate approach can be more immediate: that The Darkroom delves into memory does suggest a more personal touch is appropriate. "We were particularly drawn to memory as a theme as it has such explorative possibilities," Carr continues. "It is something everyone can relate to and is very fun to play with – particularly in terms of creating an immersive world!"
The Marquez influence adds a layer - the author's play with the boundaries between fantasy and reality often evokes the power of memory to mythologise the past, and his "magic realism" has the surreal symbolism of dreams or legends. Carr herself remembers that "at the time when we were coming up with ideas, I was reading 100 Years of Solitude. Ideas we were interested in as a company were memory, old age and the cinema: it just so happened that the novel also touches on these and everything seemed to link in quite nicely."Since Witness' last production was an Oscar Wilde (set in a tearoom, but still harking back to a respected script), the journey into this new piece has allowed the company to clarify its own voice. "We work very playfully with the magic of theatre, and so a magic realist novel was apt for us. We devised a number of short scenes and scratched these, listened to audience feedback and developed the full show," says Carr.
"It’s actually very nice to go from one project to something radically different, and there are always transferrable approaches when working on any text. Doing the Wilde actually helped us quite a lot in thinking about The Darkroom, particularly our use of the space and the creation of the world."
Personally, I am glad that it isn't Wilde that Witness are bringing north: with all due respect to the various versions of Dorian and Earnest, it is impossible to decide which ones are worth a visit from a glance at the Fringe brochure - and a glance is all that most things are likely to get. Plus, I am not sure that a traditional script would bring me the delights of olfactory theatre.
Frankly, after the first week of the Fringe, personal hygiene can take second place to seeing eight shows a day, and The Darkroom is likely to bring relief to anyone who sits next to me.
Carr elaborates. "Stimulation of the senses plays such an important role in the process of remembering, for our Old Man protagonist the smell of coffee is very powerful, which will hopefully in turn stimulate audience members' own memories. Lavender is another scent that will be used." But it isn't just the smells. "We’ll also be playing with just one piece of music, to create an auditory landscape for the play. This landscape will be contributed to on stage through the use of a microphone."
Before I think I can get away with resting my eyes and then claiming I was still paying attention, Carr adds "we will be adding live on stage visuals with original films that will be playfully projected: film becomes another character in itself!" But what about the other senses - or am I being greedy?
"Touch and taste are of course the hardest senses to play with in a live performance, but we can promise they won’t be neglected!" Carr concludes. "The aim is to stitch together all these different sensory layers to create the world of the production; a world that stimulates memories, creates new ones in theprocess and is real experience for the audience."
C nova, venue 145, Edinburgh Festival Fringe Dates: 2–27 Aug
Time: 15:15(1hr00)
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