How about dinner, a movie and immersive theatre fun?
In the golden age of screens, Secret Sessions want viewers to engage anew with the art
When did going to a movie become much more than simply going to a movie?
Between the bells and whistles of 4DX, the rise of virtual reality and site-specific, cinematic happenings, something has changed dramatically about the ways that we see film.
The latest offering is something that Toronto strategic planner Bronwyn Cuthbertson calls “a happy marriage” between cinema and theatre, but we can’t tell you much more than that lest we kill the mystery.
“The movie experience” runs in Toronto until Saturday. Participants in the Secret Sessions are emailed instructions about what to wear and where to meet a mere 24 hours before show time and then live out an immersive cinematic event.
“The idea is that you get to live a movie,” Cuthbertson said.
“We’re creating a world so that you can experience a film like you were actually there if it was happening in real life.”
Heavily inspired by the Secret Cinema in London, which launched in 2007, Cuthbertson had it in the back of her mind to bring something like it to Toronto ever since she attended a show in 2012.
She and her partner, Jennifer Dysart, started planning this in January.
The result? Lots of laughs, drinks, fake moustaches and burritos. There is the chance for dancing and mingling between scenes. It’s like conceptual dinner theatre and a movie.
But maybe I’ve already said too much.
Toronto needs this, Cuthbertson said. In the golden age of screens and swipes, people are craving more than the typical night out — which would explain all the mystery rooms popping up around town.
“I think we’re onto something,” she said of the Secret Sessions. “Immersive theatre in general is a huge success . . . I think people want to break that wall down and engage in the arts in new ways.”
If something feels dramatic or gimmicky about the whole thing, it’s because it is. Cinema has a long history of using stunts to get people interested in movies, said Christopher Lane, a filmmaker and film historian who is production co-ordinator at the Toronto Film School.
Even the idea of talking in film was a gimmick at one time, he said. Then came giveaways (free turkey!) during the Depression, double bills and air conditioning. The 1950s ushered in 3D glasses and Smell-O-Vision (as stinky as it sounds).
“People were hired to dress in costumes and would jump out of the seats. (Promoters) would park an ambulance outside of the theatre (during horror films), anything just to get people wound up,” Lane said. Sensurround — extended-range bass sound effects and chairs that shook — was ushered in during the 1970s for disaster films. Then along came CGI.
“They’ve been trying this stuff forever . . . these things come and go,” he continued. But especially with so many screens competing for our attention today, “the theatre has to become an event now.”
Matthew Hays, a film critic who teaches film studies at Concordia University in Montreal, agreed that studios and promoters have to “come up with new tricks” as a means of survival and to push film into new directions.
“One of the reasons (fewer people are going to the movies today) is that now home theatres are really quite magnificent,” Hays said. The other? Better TV. Now some of the best writing, characters and acting are on the small screen, he said.
While we’ve come a long way in the movie biz, not a lot has changed. And if the Secret Sessions are any indication, moviegoers are still craving (and having) fun.
Check out thesecretsessions.ca for more information.