Bated Breath makes creative use of pandemic restrictions in a sidewalk promenade show
I haven’t been to the theatre since March. So I was excited to approach the corner of Christopher Street and 7th Ave to see my first live (non-virtual) show in Manhattan since the beginning of the pandemic, Voyeur: The Windows of Toulouse-Lautrec. Conceived and directed by Mara Lieberman and produced by the Bated Breath Theatre Company, this promenade show is a sibling to the site-specific production which ran at the bar Madame X under the title Unmaking Toulouse-Lautrec in pre-COVID times. …
Twin Alchemy’s LARP for two explores love and life-long commitment
I have already forgotten the innocent sweetness of “playing house” in kindergarten. By using tree leaves as “money” to pay for the “groceries,” “baking” sand cakes and decorating them with dandelions, and tucking “kids” to sleep under the tall elm that served as a bedroom in our imaginary house, we did everything we saw adults do and strove to recreate our own perfect nuclear family.
In some sense, The Homes We Build by Austin-based Twin Alchemy Collective invites its participants to revisit this childhood activity, only with all the cultural and experiential baggage we’ve acquired as adults. This interactive, participatory experience is a role-playing game in which two people relive a 60-year relationship over the duration of four hours. …
Coney puts Russians and Brits into a virtual hotel for a diplomatic treaty
“I wanna be in the room where it happens.”
This is a sentiment expressed by the character of Aaron Burr in the musical Hamilton but is also a desire familiar to many people. But what if there is no single room where a small group of powerful people determines the fate of the world? What if there are, in fact, many rooms in which decisions are made daily and it’s the summation of them that constitutes an outcome?
The Delegation, an interactive virtual experience by the British company Coney, looks into the power distribution of pandemic capitalism on the international arena. To do that, the director Tassos Stevens has created a virtual hotel, “Hotel Zajets,” where he acts as a concierge/moderator during a convening of two diplomatic delegations. The audience members (numbering a little over 30 participants on the day I attended) are assembled into delegations of two countries, Russia and the UK. The experience was a part of the International Summer Festival of Art’s The Access Point, a platform for site-specific and immersive work taking place in Russia and all over the world, online. …
