Latest from Noises Off
The good that we are given:
In a Cave, a Voice is a perfect example of theatre that feels immersive even from your bedroom. Opening with instructions to turn off all the lights and sit on the floor facing the doorway, throughout the performance the warm glow of the screen creates the enthralling illusion that you really are sat in a cave by a fire. It makes whatever space you are watching it from into a theatre – the world of the play is all around you, not only on the screen.
In addition to this, the story itself offers an unexpected profundity. It feels oddly familiar, despite using a Neolithic world to grapple with timeless questions of life and death. The production is at once comfortingly intimate, and chilling from the constant tension of the unknown that’s created.
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The good that we can give:
In a Cave, a Voice questions what we can and should expect from online theatre. It demonstrates that interactive theatre can be at its most effective when it doesn’t involve direct contact or pressure – when focussed around individual experience. It also opens up possibilities around which spaces can be theatres, and how we create an atmosphere: if this play is designed to be experienced in a dark room, what plays could we design for, say, an afternoon walk, or a garden at midday? How important is darkness to our experience of theatre? In a Cave, a Voice is a call to theatre-makers to dive deeper into the relationship between plays and the state in which we experience them.
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