Taking the show on the road
For Talk Is Free Theatre’s three-day theatrical ‘quest,’ patrons will travel from Ontario to the U.K.
Arkady Spivak’s latest “immersive” theatre project isn’t just ambitious in scope, it’s downright trans-Atlantic.
Talk Is Free Theatre will send audiences on a three-day “quest” experience that will take participants from Barrie — where the theatre company is based — to London, U.K., and will draw them into an unfolding story, entitled The Curious Voyage.
“I think about it as a theatre experiment without an audience really because the audience is a co-creator. They’re actually the ones driving the scenes,” says Spivak, the company’s artistic director.
Talk Is Free is no stranger to “site-specific” theatre: in which the audience travels to various locations over the course of the work.
The company, which just completed its 16th season, has experienced years in which it had no permanent building and had to be “nomadic,” he said.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been fascinated with site-specific, immersive theatre but, to a great extent, it was driven by necessity,” Spivak said.
In fact, the company has just completed a remount of a play first performed in 2008 called Tales of an
Urban Indian by Darrell Dennis. It’s staged now, as it was then, on a moving bus. The show heads to Mississauga from May 26 to June 3before going on the road to Ottawa, Halifax, Vancouver and international cities.
The company’s production of The Music Man a year and a half ago was similarly performed at various sites in downtown Barrie.
But Spivak hopes to break new ground with his latest production with eight three-day “cycles” planned from Oct. 23 to Nov.10, with 36 patrons in each, as well as company actors who won’t initially be identified.
The first day takes place in locales around Barrie, with Day 2 involving a daytime flight to London. The third day will involve a similar journey of sites around the big city before the audience arrives at a “found” space, converted for use as a theatre to watch a performance of a “secret” but well-known musical that will touch on some of the themes explored throughout the journey.
Spivak will employ the servic- es of Daniele Bartolini from Italy, a specialist in “audience-specific” theatre, who will design the story. Mitchell Cushman, artistic director of Toronto’s Outside the March company, will stage the musical production in London.
Mitchell said the difference will be in presentation since patrons will probably be familiar with the musical.
“We’re doing (the show) in a very intimate, raw found space that is going to really speak to the character of the show. The audience is going to be much more close and personal with the characters and the story than how this piece would traditionally be presented,” he said. “The idea is that by going through those (previous) expe- riences, the audience will be primed to receive the material in this musical in a new and unique way.”
During the three-day event, participants will be given itineraries with “assignments” involving going to specific places and performing specific acts.
“You’re living a life for three days as an art form,” Spivak said. The work will seek to ex- plore “the idea of human connection” in the digital age in which people spend more time interacting through their mobile devices than face to face, as well as themes of destiny and the randomness of existence.
“This is an active experience; you have to be willing to participate. But it’s not as physically demanding as it is psychologically. You have to be able to par- ticipate and be honest. But this is not a therapy session by any means. It’s an artistic work,” Spivak said.
Tickets are on sale until June 27 and the $1,950 price for a single person or $3,600 for two — which covers travel, accommodation and meals — is not deterring those who enjoy experimental theatre, with one “cycle” already sold out, he said.
“There’s been a bunch of inquiries and they’re actually coming from everywhere. Nowhere does it say you have to be (from) Barrie. There are people wanting to fly in from Boston (and London),” he said.
Cushman, who’s collaborated with Spivak in three previous productions and whose own company is one of the country’s leading immersive theatre operators, said he’s impressed with these latest ambitions.
“In a way, this is a return to the company’s roots but on a much bigger scale than they’ve done in the past. ” Cushman said.