I emailed a list of questions to an employee at Punchdrunk who I had previously worked with and they sent back some thoughts, insights from Punchdrunk documents and recommended reading
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1. How would you define immersive theatre?
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There are numberous ways to describe work that takes place in non-traditional setting: site-specific, site responsive, promenade, radical promenade, immersive.
Punchdrunk defines its style of work foremost as site-sympathetic, as works are always createed in response to the architecture, layout and atmosphere of the space - whether it’s an empty warehouse, an old hotel or ten acres of ancient woodland.
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2. How essential is it for the audience to have an active role within an immersive show and should this involve decision-making that affects the narrative or is that not possible? If it is possible to what exgtent?
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The role of the audience in a mask show: (Sleep No More, Faust, The Masque of the Red Death)
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Audience members are ghosts who wander the space and are rarely acknowledged by perfomers. They are masked to give anonymity and to discourage them from talking, as well as to encourage a personal response and an individual approach to exploration. Generally, they are able to roam freely around the space, and to choose what they watch and which characters or elements of the narrative they follow. The production often feels dreamlike for audience members, or they can feel like they have become a camera in a film they’re constructing.
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The role of the audience in an active promenade: (Crash of the Elysium, Against Captain’s Orders)
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Audience members are visible to the performers and are free to interact. They play themselves but are key to (and often the primary element in) the success of the production - for example, they may be given a mission, the completion of which concludes the show. The scenario in which the audience finds itself starts and ends in reality, with a fantastical journey in between. It feels believable and audiences can question whether it was indeed a reality. Programme notes, adverts and other promotional material do not refer to these productions as shows or theatre.
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3. Within a Punchdrunk production the audience has a huge amount of freedom to roam and explore but is a silent participant. Do you think there is room for an audience member to have a “voice” within a large-scale immersive production?
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For Punchdrunk the audience is often the starting point for each production. The process of putting yourself in the shoes of an audience member is essential when making work, as more often than not the company is asking audiences not to view the work from a seat, but to experience it moving around, making decisions, finding their own action. This presents a whole series of dramaturgical, narrative and practical challenges to solve that are fundamentally different from the kinds of considerations that you might face in a more traditional setting when the audience is essentially fixed.
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Key questions asked by the company are as follows:
· Who are the audience members?
· What is their role in the piece?
· How do they interact with performers?
· How do we inform the audience of what they can or can’t do within the narrative of the piece?
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This is also an interesting moment to look at the Enrichment work (I’ve attached the Principals for making immersive work for young people as in these projects the young people are given an active role and they are the main ‘character’. They have a mission to complete and we need them to solve the ‘problem’
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4. 4. Punchdrunk executes beautiful largescale productions that take audiences to another world, do you think that similar emotional experiences can be created with lower budget immersive work and is it as effective?
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For this question I’d look at the Enrichment work that the Punchdrunk had produced as it is smaller scale, on a smaller budget and often is designed so that it can be toured or scaled up across the country.
Good examples are The Lost Lending Library (as an instillation) and Small Wonders (radical promenade). At the extreme end of the scale is A Small Tale that is delivered by one teacher to a class. It still has a magical story and follows all the principals of how Punchdrunk make work but is on a tiny scale. You can find out more about the Enrichment work here:
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Italics taken from this article:
https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/a-punchdrunk-approach-to-making-theatre