Senses Bureau

 

Dawn and eyes both crack,
The night before no solace;
Rest when you are dead.

It’s 9:30 am and I, like several others, was up until the wee hours finishing process drama unit plans for the esteemed Will Barlow. After staring at the ceiling for longer than I’m proud to admit, I roll out of bed and take a moment to appreciate just how exhausted I am. I’m soon joined by Daniel, and we go about the day: a stop to Waitrose for tangerines (for today’s workshop) and premade sandwiches (Matilda’s not gonna keep ME from eating!); a saunter to Antalya for a Turkish mixed grill and baklava; and it was time for our second encounter with the man, the myth, the Oily Cart driver himself: Mr. Tim Webb!

Today’s afternoon session gave us an opportunity to take a stab at creating immersive sensory theatre in the style that Tim spoke with us about last week. He had not come empty handed, and had a table full of stimulating objects for us to use: spray bottles, hand warmers, bubble makers, hand instruments, brushes, and all sorts of goodies. We settled in, and the excitement grew.

We arranged ourselves in our four groups, established the week before. Our warmup task: create an experience influenced by a haunted house. Tim gave some initial words of wisdom, specifically to allow for silence and stillness in the piece, as well as engaging the participant’s kinesthetic sense (which was demonstrated by having Jonathan push and spin his around the room in a rollie chair). Fifteen minutes later we enjoyed our classmates' spooky experiences.

1.      

We then moved to our primary task; last week we made four groups based in what demographic we wanted to build an experience for. Now, it was time to do just that, either for 6 to 12 month-olds (my group), the elderly suffering from dementia, visually impaired teenaged girls, or youth on the autism spectrum. My group’ led our infants through a tour of the seasons, with umbrellas to touch, foam bubbles to mush, dry leaves to crunch, and orange to peel, smell, and taste. The other groups, in their spectacular fashion, brought their elderly dementia patients in their wheelchairs for a day at the beach, complete with sunscreen, sea spray, and two summer sing-alongs in their ‘car rides’ to and from the sea. Another provided visually impaired girls a spa day: lotioned hand massages, soft brushing on hands and arms, all under a beautiful harmonized hum from the practitioners and punctuated by elegant finger cymbals (that left me utterly relaxed as well!). The last brought us all on a journey to the clouds, comfortably sprawled under lovely billowing fabrics, watering the earth with spray bottles through massive windows (that miraculously brought down real rain outside!), and dancing with an enthusiastic ‘cloud person’, all backed by a subtle and relaxing soundscape.

Tim was largely impressed with the groups, especially given the limited amount of time and resources at our disposal. He used the end of the session to give feedback, which was largely reinforcing all the things we’d done well. My big takeaways:

1.      1. Take time. Immense amounts of time. Really allow each participant to experience each stimulus and have the time to process it and generate an emotional response to it. Many of the populations we might develop this sensory theatre for will take longer to connect and engage with the stimuli and the journey we’re taking them on.

2.      2. Silence and stillness. I think the groups did a great job with this one; really let each stimulus exist on its own, and don’t rush or overstimulate. Anticipation of new stimulus can be even more effective than the stimulus itself.

3.     3.  Have individual experiences. Even more important than an overall experience for the total audience is the individual connections to be made with individual participants. In many ways, even if these experiences are designed for a group, they should be executed for individuals, moment by moment.

Our amazing session with Tim now complete, we had just enough time to venture through Seven Dials (and its namesake market) to the Cambridge Theatre for our penultimate professional production: Matilda!

Our seats were in the last rows of the Upper Circle; perhaps not the best seats to watch all of the upstage action of the show, but an excellent vantage for all the cool floor and trap elements, of which there were many. Mahsa, Adrianna, and I picked out words formed by a series of colorful wooden blocks with letters on them that adorned the proscenium (and the rest of the set) as we waited for curtain, and as the lights went down, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. While many of our group are very familiar with this musical, I’d only ever read the book, and I’m generally wary of shows that rely on a large ensemble of children. I shouldn’t have worried. This group of kids (and the rest of the ensemble as well, don’t get me wrong) was incredible. Sharp choreography, beautiful arrangements, fantastic design; the show is slick, smart, and oh so much fun. And Matilda… Oh my Matilda: that little girl is a powerhouse! My only real gripes are about the mix, which is not designed for the back few rows so high in the space (it was very hard to hear lyrics, especially from those singing in heavy accents), and the concern over Trumball being played by a man. I understand this gender swap is operating in the Panto tradition, and that it’s partially done to create a menacing physical presence, but I can see this convention being problematic in future productions for what it says about gender roles and “appropriate” femininity.

At the close of the evening, I sat with a huge goofy grin on my face, happy for a day of exploration, conversation, and joyous spectatorship, and let my mind move on to our Saturday objective: travel to Stratford-upon-Avon! Nick will fill you in on that tomorrow, but in the meanwhile:

 

A zealous tribe of theatre makers reach
To tell their tales within a sense’ry world
On wheels of age to walk a sandy beach
And visit clouds with linins all unfurl’d
They wove their stories with a strangers tools
Their standards lowered mastless from the sun
And drove they on, not wishing to be fools
To vic’try claim o’er task which they’d begun.
But rabbits here they need no hole to hide:
The foxes lurk’d not in the forest loam;
Their trepidations all unjustified
For guide was kind and he did lead them home.
Our sage’s skillful silence rings for me:
Employ it for strong tales in memory.