It can’t be long now before the practice of equipping theatre audiences with headphones goes mainstream. The technique has rapidly filtered from London’s fringe, where it’s used in experimental scratches to create audio-controlled audience-members-as-performers, to the Almeida, one of the larger off West End venues, where it’s used as a tool to solve some of the problems inherent in outdoor promenade. Next stop, the West End, where presumably it’ll be used to provide DVD-style commentary or something.
Whether or not a West end production would utilise the technique’s full dramatic potential, chances are it would have the budget to overcome some of the technical issues that blight the Almeida’s production, Slung Low’s Last Seen.
The company use chunky ear-defender type radio ‘phones and miked-up actors to ensure that even those in the audience who can’t see the action can at least hear every nuance of the dialogue. A sound tech accompanies the procession around the streets of Islington, armed with a bulky backpack that broadcasts incidental music and sound effects to accentuate the actors’ voices or underscore silent sequences. The technology vastly improves the outdoor promenade format, helping maintain an atmosphere that could otherwise easily be shattered by background noise.
There are three routes, and each audience member only gets to see one, but occasionally you can catch glimpses of set pieces not intended for you: a fully laid dinner table through a park gate is a reminder that the stories you see are never the entirety of what the city has to tell. Every passer-by wearing headphones or a hands-free set feels like they could potentially be a player. Though all you ever do is follow and listen, there’s an exciting sense of exploration and discovery without the attendant dangers of the unknown.
But – and though it most probably isn’t the company’s fault, it’s still a big but – the headphones pick up interference far too easily. Some of the dialogue sinks under waves of static, which can be physically painful on the ear, and the music under one potentially very poignant moment has to share the airwaves with a local pirate radio station broadcasting from a nearby window.
The technology is simultaneously the best and worst aspect of Last Seen. Without it, the production would be at best pedestrian and at worst inaudible. Because of it, the production will be discussed more for its technical flaws than for its dramatic merit (as I’ve demonstrated). What the production definitely is, though, is a glimpse of how the technology could positively impact theatre, whether as a dramatic technique in itself or as a facilitatory tool, once its shortcomings are ironed out. The theatre world might just have to wait until the technology catches up to its vision.
Interferences, undesired noises, pirate radio waves: that’s a very interesting audio material for the play, unforeseeable, unexpected, showing the “radio wave dimension” in which character’s voices lives.
I found the ‘radio interference’ added to the atmosphere; it reminded me that even when at heart-stopping moments and other key moments in our lives, there is the continual cross wind of other people’s lives going on. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.
The drama itself though - or at least the story we followed - was only so-so.
It’s really interesting that you enjoyed the interference as part of the experience. I’ve always thought that when people give a work the benefit of the doubt and make an effort to excuse its faults rather than criticise them, it’s evidence that the work must be particularly engaging. With that in mind, it’s especially interesting that you (Paul) feel like justifying the technical problems rather than being annoyed by them, even though you thought the story was only so-so.
Which route/character did you follow, out of interest? I saw Reason Season (Terrance) and I’ve heard some stuff about Joy, but I know nothing about The Great Bear besides a chalked-up urchin and a dinner table in a park that I glimpsed while following my own route.
I followed the one about the man who was planning to try to leave his memories behind by going to the coast (I think that was Terence wasn’t it?) Some bits really worked for me (eg the early scene looking into the restaurant, the girl he stood up), but I was frustrated by the silent scene involving the whole family in and out of their home (I suppose I wanted to know more about what was going on at this point in his life, but couldn’t separate in my mind what were troubles and what were the normal ups and downs) and found it difficult to concentrate on the final scene (at the restaurant again) because there were so many other people milling around by then that it was getting a bit distracting. As a result, I was surprised that Terence did actually go - he seemed a person who would wallow but not be decisive - and that his mate got into the car with him - I missed the motivation for this completely. But it was still worthwhile and would recommend it to others.
This is an old tool - i think, 1st used by Jean Francois Lyotard for his “postmodernism and immateriality”-exhibition - he was the first also who designed special routes for the visitors (architecture, city-guides, other exhibitions followed later, the GPS..) - it´s the stage´s stage. These solutions, to me, construct the opposite of the Brechtian theatre (!!!) but also melt structures together - isn´t there a kind of Living Theatre with it??
The sonic and sound problems seem not unsolvable.
I wasn´t there - but - the concept as intended by Lyotard was a way to sensibilize the audience - Lyotard confused the real with imaginations and images about the real, …with fakes, simulacra and all that … immersion and emotions … to me, here, the structures (including the headphones) generate the emotions… not the people/persons…
… i volunteered in a real missing person case - it was a big one with big media storms in the u.s.a. - one result was a movie (thriller - a person i worked with helped to develop the script - i never would have done it) - in reality, you do not have these structures above… you sustain the structures with hope and much bullshit (because you believe in the happy end)… to develop the structures, as Slung Low did, means, to control… anyway … of course it´s an open work, it´s still fuzzy… but the MINUS (i wasn´t there, you can kill me) is also the cultural history the effort had been set into… (fairytales, mythology)… so, it´s not really out of the box… and… the stage became a sonic realm ( a substitute)… they can do better…
plus … a missing person consists of relations… it´s much more complex… to work with this complexity cracks any stage into life… the person unfolds… becomes real, more real… Slung Low didn´t made enough out of their concept… the idea with the three narrations is an ongoing ticket inspector… route comes from routine… any routine splits to pieces with the real case… all maps are thrown away… Slung Low delivered a mapping… (but a good idea)