Scene unseen If audiences are in the dark about new play, then everything's going as planned By: Randall King Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Thursday, Sep. 24, 2020

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This article was published 23/09/2020 (1457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The first significant theatrical production to make it to the Winnipeg stage in several months might be called many things.

“A feast for the eyes” is not among them.

Blink, a co-production of Winnipeg companies One Trunk Theatre and Walk&Talk Theatre Company, is a play that is mainly designed to be heard and not seen.

In that, it resembles a past theatre production at the West End Cultural Centre, the 2017 show Tomorrow’s Child, which saw audience members being blindfolded before they were ushered into the theatre to listen to an aural extravaganza of high-tech misadventure of the future, based on a story by Ray Bradbury.

One Trunk’s founding artistic producer Andraea Sartison had a hand in that show, and recognized the possibilities of an all-new audio play that could not only be performed safely, but would reflect the pandemic times in which it would be produced.

That’s why the show will invite audience members to attend one of the two shows next weekend from within a number of physically distanced tents on the floor of the West End Cultural Centre, a slight variation from the blindfolded audience setup of Tomorrow’s Child.

“It’s a play for an audience in the dark. There are no visual cues in this play,” says Sartison, who was pitched on the idea by playwright Ben Townsley, also a local performer affiliated with Walk&Talk.

“He wanted this to be told to an audience in the dark. And I said, ‘Oh I’ve actually seen something done like that before, so why don’t we work together?’ Because I know it’s pretty magical.”

The premise of the show, Sartison explains, is “a guided meditation gone wrong.”

“A voice invites you to a special town called Beach Town,” she says, explaining that the meditation guide, “the Mayor,” commands the sun to set. The population of the town must subsequently come to terms with the fact that the sun may never come up again.

“So throughout the rest of the play, it’s all these great scenes where characters of Beach Town and the surrounding area are grappling with what it’s like to be in a whole new reality.”

If that sounds like something an audience could relate to, Sartison says Townsley began writing the script after the COVID-19 lockdown in March, and the show reflects the strange new world we’re all living in.

“I think there are definitely correlations that an audience will make to the story that’s being told and the time that we’re living in,” she says. “It’s not necessarily an allegory. But we’re all dealing with a brand new reality — and what do we do when we are faced with it and all the different ways we can deal with it?

“And it’s a way of producing theatre safely too,” Sartison says. “Even in rehearsal, we can be socially distant from each other.”

Some voices will be live, but some of the voices and audio effects are pre-recorded, she says.

“We would like everybody to have the same experience in the tents and that’s what we’re going to strive for.” – Andraea Sartison

“We can bring in people from the other side of the country to be part of a live performance, something we never would’ve been able to do before,” she says.

Ideally, the show would be best enjoyed by audience members in COVID-19 cohorts, who could share a tent safely.

“We would like everybody to have the same experience in the tents and that’s what we’re going to strive for,” Sartison says. “But again, we don’t know how many cohorts will be there and how many people will buy tickets.”

When a patron purchase tickets, they will be contacted by One Trunk to be asked if they are comfortable staying in a tent with the rest of their party, or if they’d rather be alone. There’s also the option to be blindfolded without being in a tent.

“And from that, we’ll put together a floor plan and each person will be assigned and will be ushered to their tent when they arrive,” she says.

There is even a dinner-theatre component for the Saturday evening performance, which is pricier ($55) than the Sunday matinee ($35).

“On Saturday night, the tickets include food, so the food will be served in your tent. You can have a little camp-out,” she says. (The meal is mac-and-cheese and a bannock hotdog served fresh from the Feast Cafe Bistro across Ellice from the WECC.)

“Everybody will have a little time to listen to some great campfire music and have a snack before they’re invited to lie down and listen to the show,” Sartison says.

The play may be enjoyed at a later date as an audio experience delivered through Spotify.

“There’s a digital component, which will come out afterwards,” Sartison says. “We’ve been hearing a lot as artists to ‘pivot digital’ and One Trunk has been doing a lot of that. But ultimately, we are live artists and we want to be with our audience.

“We want to see them, even if it’s in the dark,” she says. “We want to know we’re breathing the same safe air.”

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing