Mystery surrounds theatre project dubbed game of ‘extreme people watching’
A black box, a red-curtained labyrinth and a mysterious encounter with yourself might sound like the stuff of nightmares. But, A Game of You is an award-winning immersive theatre project that has been called brilliant, clever, hilarious and a game of “extreme people watching” that is both gentle and evocative of David Lynch.
Local producer Stas Manouvakhov was blown away when he experienced A Game of You while on a trip to Moscow last year. Manouvakhov says he came out of the experience laughing non-stop. “I couldn’t stop. Not because it was funny or there was humour involved but because my brain completely shut down. It was genius.”
The event is a combination of reality and theatre, says Manouvakhov, that works to “create an experience that would otherwise not be available.”
Manouvakhov discovered A Game of You had been a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe festival in 2015, and the show then travelled the world, from Dublin to Singapore. Manouvakhov was compelled to bring it to Vancouver. “I wanted to share it with my friends, my family and with the whole city.”
Belgium-based creator Alexander Devriendt, one of the originators of the show and founder of the acclaimed Belgian theatre company Ontroerend Goed, didn’t want to give up any spoilers as he worked with actors to prep the show this week for its Friday opening. “It’s important not to give much more away — except that it’s not scary,” he said.
Audience members enter the red-curtained rooms one at a time and encounter different experiences with actors, mirrors and with themselves. “As you move through it, you meet and have experiences with a different you.”
Devriendt is careful to explain this is not interactive theatre — which he says he doesn’t like because he doesn’t believe audience members should be pressured to participate. He calls the experience immersive. “You will feel it’s a performance, you will feel guided,” says Devriendt.
“The possibilities of theatre are so much richer than books or movies because you can have a three-dimensional physical experience and have live interactions with people, which can open up more possibility of conveying an image or a feeling.”
The idea for the show was prompted by the philosophical idea of the outer world being a projection of your inner world and by a dream Devriendt had in which he saw three mirror images of himself.