Imagine sitting in a room in the dark in the middle of the night. Then imagine scouring the room for any faint light source: cracks in floorboards, street lighting leaking in through the window, LEDs in electrical fixtures, mobile phone screens. Once these are all eliminated, you are left in an unnerving blanket of darkness. It is under these conditions that experimental theater performance Ring takes place.
Audience members are given wireless headphones to wear and ushered into a room that, after a few minutes, is plunged into complete obscurity. A short while later, the lights come back up and we are given the option of leaving; otherwise we will be stuck for the next 50 minutes. One lady does. It's not clear whether or not she is a stooge, but it exacerbates the sense of foreboding.
[partner id="wireduk"]The show is presented using binaural sound technology, which involves using a dummy head with microphones stuffed into its "ears" for realistic sound re-creation -- when the sound is played back through the headphones, the listener is located at the center of a sonically accurate soundscape.
Just after the lights are turned down for the second time, we are told by a character called Michael that the group will be moving the chairs into a circle. Despite knowing that my chair was tethered to my neighbors on either side, the scraping of metal against the wooden floor and the murmur of chitchat made me question that knowledge. Throughout the performance, cast members sound as though they are dotted throughout the room. There's a terrifyingly intimate moment when someone whispers in your ear, the distant sound of someone crunching crisps, coughs coming from people sitting behind me -- it's not clear to me whether they are real sounds or recorded ones.
I later find out that everything is recorded.
The narrative is fairly opaque. We don't know exactly what the meeting is for: Is it a self-help group? Some sort of therapy session? There are lots of references to a character called Francis, including allegations of wrong-doing. Audience members soon find out that they are, in fact, Francis. You feel persecuted and paranoid. Are you being stitched up? Did you actually do the things they say you have done?
The lack of clarity is intentional. Director David Rosenberg -- founder of Shunt -- and writer Glen Neath were very keen to make sure that audience members were forced to fill in the gaps. Rosenberg told Wired: "We are trying to create an experience for the audience where the narrative circles around them. It was important that the audience doesn't feel that they are listening to a story. There was always a danger that it could become a radio play of sorts and we were keen to keep the fact that there was a live audience in the room as an important part of the piece."
Rosenberg decided to create a show in the dark after trialling binaural technology for a couple of other performances: Electric Hotel and Motor Show. Both involved the audience being located in one place, viewing action unfold quite far away, but hearing the sound as if they were in the middle of the action. "The visual stimulation ended up grounding everything else; the sound attached itself to what you saw. With this piece we wanted to play with the auditory component and allow the energy to be created from this and the imagination of the audience."
It cannot be underestimated how powerful it is to sit in complete darkness for an hour. I sat with my eyes peeled, scouring the blackness for something to latch onto. After several minutes, my imagination started to run wild. I kept on thinking that I could see shapes, when I knew this wasn't possible. I started to feel the footsteps of people who only existed within the headphones. When one moderately gruesome scene was described, I found myself actively trying to have less sinister thoughts: I tried to imagine the Nyan cat video in a bid to tell my brain who was in control, but I felt the friendly feline being wrestled from my mind. At times I even took the headphones off to reassure myself that it wasn't real. The tension is exacerbated by the fact that you are asked not to sit next to anyone you know -- so you don't have the opportunity to reach out and hold a friend's hand for support. The result -- at least for me -- was an incredible sense of relief when the lights came up and I could share what had been an incredibly lonely, isolating experience.
When I speak to Rosenberg, I discover that some people have told him that they wanted it to be scarier, while others find it so overwhelming that they have to leave the room.
I was left with a deep sense of unease that followed me from the shadows for the rest of the evening. I'm still not entirely clear what happened in that room, but I haven't been affected by a show as profoundly in a long time.
The show Ring is showing at Battersea Arts Centre until March 28.
