What is Immersive Theatre?
“resist a definition that is all encompassing." [1] - Owen Kingston, artistic director of Parabolic theatre.
Immersive theatre is the current frontier of theatre practice and is yet to be concisely defined accurately. Definitions that we have encountered were non-specific and fail to pin down all aspects of what can or does contribute to an immersive performance:
“immersive is not a one-size-fits-all model. Some shows use new technologies; many don’t. Some are one-on-one experiences; others are large scale. Some take place in an enclosed venue; others use the entire city or use landscape as their set. Some use text and others don’t.”[2] – Lynn Gardner, The Stage
Often they focused solely upon one aspect such as the importance of the design or the audience agency without acknowledging the importance of both or other elements that contribute to the whole:
“making a good immersive show is difficult and…teeters on the balance between scripted-events and audience-freedom…[how to] empower the player while maintaining a satisfying narrative structure.”[3] - Thomas McMullan, The Guardian.
Those that watch and critique immersive performances will often have an entirely unique perspective on the experience due to the nature of these shows. Those that create immersive theatre shows have a specific practice that they have developed and so define through the lens of their own work which is often entirely different to that of other immersive practitioners:
“A water analogy of being submerged in another medium can help to describe and define immersive performance practice…immersive performance usually provides stimulation for multiple senses, not only sight and sound.” [4] - The Punchdrunk Encyclopaedia
Kingston describes four types of immersive theatre shows[5] that he has defined to help decode what he is seeing and what techniques a theatre company is using to immerse an audience.
The Grand Narrative
The Game
Carousel
Sandbox
Large fragmented narrative. Most of the audience will not see the entire show as it will be “too big to follow the entire story all in one go.”[6]
Example - Punchdrunk’s The Drowned Man[7]
Shows that are built around completing a or a series of tasks
Example - Firehazard’s citydash[8]
An audience of any size moves from scene to scene seeing the entire show. Often there will be several audiences who move from scene to scene one after another making them cost efficient for theatre companies but there is usually limited agency.
Example - Les Enfants Terribles’ Alice’s Adventures underground[9]
A space full of opportunities for the audience to interact within an immersive world.
Example - Secret Cinema’s Romeo and Juliet[10]
IMMERSE 101 definition
For the purpose of developing our unique communications practice it was important to find a definition for immersive theatre that can be practically implemented so that we could develop successful work for our clients. As you can see from the definitions above this would never be possible through description alone.
We have discovered that all true immersive threatre experiences have an element of the following:
1
The Audience has a sense of agency even if this is contrived.
2
The audience is taken to an alternative reality which expands beyond the physical actuality of the experience’s landscape (that reality may look visually like this one).
3
There is a sense of closure at the end of the show which is satisfactory to the audience in some way (narrative or emotive).
You may recognise that some forms of communications you have encountered already use aspects of these three principles.
Not all these three elements will always necessarily play in equal strength throughout an immersive production but all three must be present within an experience to make it immersive.
We expand upon the principles in our internal Handbook.
[1] Interview with Owen Kingston, Artistic Director of Parabolic Theatre Company. Conducted on Tuesday 10th September 2019 at The Collab Factory, London
[2] Gardner, L [2018] Is immersive theatre growing up or growing too big, too quickly? [Online] Available at: https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/2018/immersive-theatre-growing-growing-big-quickly/ [Accessed June 3rd 2018]
[3] McMullan, T [2014] The immersed audience: how theatre is taking its cue from video games [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/20/how-theatre-is-taking-its-cue-from-video-games [Accessed 15th October 2019]
[4] Machon, J. 2019. The Punchdrunk Encyclopaedia. 1st edition, Routledge, Abingdon
[5] Notes taken at SANDBOX [28th-29th September 2019] A Gunpowder Plot Symposium: Immersive worlds and playable spaces [Potemkin Theatre, London]
[6] Notes taken at SANDBOX [28th-29th September 2019] A Gunpowder Plot Symposium: Immersive worlds and playable spaces [Potemkin Theatre, London]
[7] Punchdrunk [Unknown] The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable [Online] Available at: https://www.punchdrunk.org.uk/the-drowned-man [Accessed 17th August 2019]
[8] Fire hazard [unknown] citydash [Online] Available at: https://www.huntedexperience.co.uk/citydash [Accessed 20th October 2019]
[9] Les Enfants Terribles [unknown] Alice’s Adventures Underground [Online] Available at: https://lesenfantsterribles.co.uk/shows/alices-adventures-underground/ [Accessed 3rd October 2019]
[10] Secret Cinema [2019] August 2018. Secret Cinema Presents: William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet [Online] Available at: https://www.secretcinema.org/previous-worlds/romeo-and-juliet [Accessed October 19th 2019]