Are you in Swansea on Saturday 7 November?
Because I was in Swansea last Saturday 31 October to participate in ShellShock Theatre's lovely pervasive theatre experience: HiddenCity.
ShellShock Theatre are Stephen Donnelly and Sian Stuttard, two really exciting and enterprising performers who are based in Swansea.
HiddenCity was a theatrical experience devised by the Company with four actors. Divided into three teams we were given a series of clues that took us on a journey of discovery through Swansea city centre.
We travelled through a series of encounters with various Swansea residents who encouraged us look at the city and our relationships within it and with it. Very interesting for me to investigate my relationship to Swansea as a Cardiff girl. The last time I went out down Wind Street was as a teenager with an older boyfriend whose sister got into a fight with a nightclub bouncer. I remember biting and headlocks. That is my image of Swansea.
The journey accumulated in a lovely community "happening", where we all got to come together and share our ideas and thoughts on the city of Swansea. There were ideas for regeneration, for creating utopia and retreating back to the past. There were people who loved Swansea and people who couldn't wait to get away to somewhere else. It was fantastic swapping attitudes and prejudices with other audience participants, most of whom knew the city much better than me!
Continuing the spirit of playfulness, Esko and I bought sherbet Double Dips as we drove out of Swansea and back to Cardiff. (Thanks Esko for the photos in this Blog!)
I thought that having a playful theatrical experience that made me think about social issues and local themes by engaging in my environment, rather than having a worthy didactic performance to simply watch, was a really clever way of getting me to learn something new and challenge my own opinions of Swansea.
Then I dropped the sherbet Double Dabs open in the car, spilling pink and orange fizz everywhere. And I was back down to earth and apologising for trashing the place. It was like my ex-boyfriend's sister all over again.
HiddenCity is performing AGAIN next Saturday 7 November. Noon start in Swansea Met University's Dynevor Campus in the City Centre. Contact Stephen or Sian before hand through this Community because it already has limited ticket availability.
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Add a Comment
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Comment by Catherine Paskell on November 3, 2009 at 3:39
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For me, there has to be interactivity in everything I do theatre-wise, whether it's a play or a pervasive experience. I have to, as an audience member, feel involved in the production, that I am part of a dialogue with the performers, the writers, the directors, the theatre architects. For me it is not enough for me to be talked to/lectured at. I need to be engaged. It just so happens that because of the format, quite often these "wandery-abouty games" do it automatically, but even that is quite often not the case. I have played many games (bad ones) where I am totally uninvolved (even though I am 'involved' by running around). I feel talked or performed at. My interactivity feels forced and fake, a gimick. I stand at the back and think "what is the point?" This also happens to me when I see bad plays (badly directed ones most often; the play can actually be well written).
I think that when theatre of any kind stops being interactive with its audience, stops engaging its audience, then it stops being interesting to me. This applies whether this be a game or a play.
And if anyone DOES want to hear some dirty jokes, message me and I can send them through private channels so the Puritan Police don't get me.
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Comment by Gary Owen on November 3, 2009 at 3:06
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What's that, floating in the gutter? Oh - it's YOUR MIND. I understand you've been to Swansea, but you're back in the capital now: please, let's have some standards.
Plus I am not letting you sidestep, Shane Williams-like, my point. Here I am trying to head off incipient factionalism at the pass and herd us into one great big happy lovebundle - and there you go blithely carving up the theatrical landscape into shiny new wandery-abouty games and stuffy old-fashioned things you 'just watch'. Of course a good piece of performance (or whatever you're calling it these days) beats a bad play. A good anything beats a bad anything else. So what's the point of setting up an opposition between the interactivity stuff, and the 'just watch' stuff?
Or is that an official NTW line - that interactive theatre games are just better than plays?
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You are trolling, and I claim my five pounds.
Oh dear Gary, when you wrote that I thought you meant MY definition of trolling
I think I'm worth more than a fiver :S
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