The fuselage shutters and creaks. A flight attendant leans in and whispers “You are already in the luckiest seat.” Later, you may swear you felt her breath in the pitch-black darkness. She was that close. Or so she seemed in “Flight,” one of three multisensory experiences unfolding in shipping containers unloaded onto a gravelly, fenced lot in Denver’s River North Art District.
“Darkfield” is the title of the trilogy, but also the moniker of the inventive outfit that created “Flight,” “Séance” and “Coma,” all of which are presented completely in the dark. The company launched its U.S. tour at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, courtesy of Off Center, the presenter of works that are innovative, immersive, and often very clever.
To describe with too much detail each experience would be a spoiler akin to revealing where every skeleton will jump out during a haunted house tour. What’s the fun in that?
What’s remarkable is the way total darkness tosses out one of the primary senses that many of us (but certainly not all) rely on not just to orient ourselves in our daily lives when we take in stories. Before the attendees enter the container, they are advised in the most chipper way possible that if you are claustrophobic or afraid of the dark, now might be the time to rethink your commitment. There will also be a second chance to bow out, which is more than you get on a roller coaster.
After a brief, recorded salvo inside the shipping containers, the lights go out. It’s the kind of blackout the sleep-deprived are advised to seek out: a dark in which you cannot see the outline of your hand in front of your nose. For a brief moment in “Coma,” there was a little red dot above each bunk bed and then… nothing. Darkness.
Each experience courts a different version of eerieness, fear or unease. “Flight:” crashing and unexpected death. “Séance:” interactions with things that go bump (loudly) in the dark or skeptical encounters with bossy charlatans who exploit beliefs in the supernatural. “Coma”: the simulation of a consciousness that resides on the other side of being conscious.
Those various feelings are prompted by a 360-degree sound design produced by a bi-aural microphone. Although there are less cumbersome examples, one version of this kind of device is a head-shaped, dummy microphone that picks up sounds the way ears do.
This is story-crafting as event, as happening. Although you are seated in “Flight” and “Séance,” and stretched out in a bunk bed in “Coma,” each is an adventure in sensation as well as a scripted experience. Which means each can touch on emotions, sensations, thoughts or a satisfyingly personal combination.
With a headset on, a guest “feels” the space and “fills” it, too. The set gains become more real from the meeting of the sound design and the way we humans already carry the sense (real or imagined) of certain spaces within us. Guests take that knowledge into the shipping container.
“Darkfield” underscores the nice challenges of “reviewing” experiential work of this kind: in that my fears and anxieties may be very different than yours. For instance, I’m an anxious flyer. So much so that I know every hum and whirr of a Boeing 737 and nothing about “Flight” tapped into my primal fears. This doesn’t mean its considerations about death and consciousness, memory and survival, here and elsewhere weren’t intriguing. They were.
Likewise, I overheard a woman who’s attended séances say her experience of them was quite different than that of “Séance,” during which patrons settle in at a very long table facing each other. Lights out. Hands on the table (BTW, I got this wrong by taking too literally the command to keep everything off the table). Noises, thumps and prickly banter ensue.
The day after “Darkfield” opened, co-artistic directors David Rosenberg and Glen Neath and creative director and producer Victoria Eyton led a workshop about the ways their shows are designed: first comes the story, then the physical design and then the sound.
After a primer in the ways bi-aural audio works, the trio divided the attendees into groups that would create their own sound-lead experience. Among the participants were some local creatives known for the richly textured stories they’ve created for area audiences: Off Center’s Courtney Ozaki, Theatre Artibus’ Buba Basishvili and Camp Christmas installation artist, Lonnie Hanzon. That these were some of the attendees underlines the efforts Off Center, under Charlie Miller’s guidance, are undertaking in building and supporting local artists engaged in experiential storytelling.
As for the “Darkfield” trilogy, patrons can buy tickets for one, two or all three experiences and can choose the order in which they dive in. If the chatter that filled the space between each 30-minute experience and the next was an indication, “Darkfield” offers ample fodder for amusing and amused deconstructions over food and drinks. If you have yet to experience an immersive production, “Darkfield” provides a clever and thought-provoking entry point.
Opening weekend, the heat outside was harsh as it hovered around the 100-degree mark. For some, the temperature within the shipping containers, although air-conditioned, was deeply uncomfortable. On Monday, Off Center’s impresario Miller sent an email of apology to patrons, acknowledging that “Due to the extreme heat and technical issues, we regret that the experience may not have met your expectations.” Hopefully the weather won’t reach those highs again, but Off Center and the show’s producers are addressing the issues.
A different caveat: While not every experience is designed to be accessible to every person, expanding opportunities for people with disabilities appears to be an afterthought in the design of too many immersive shows. The one “Darkfield” experience that can’t accommodate people in wheelchairs is “Flight.” But the narrow confines of “Séance” and the tightly stacked bunkbeds of “Coma” don’t seem much better. This observation needn’t sound like a call to toss the baby out with the bathwater. (Denver Center is encouraging patrons with accessibility concerns to email accessibility@dcpa.org.)
Instead, it’s an observation that in creating new realities that mimic our current ones we are allowed to improve upon the limits of the ones we navigate so differently. In doing so we might expand consciousness in the process.
IF YOU GO
Created by Darkfield. Co-directed David Rosenberg and Glen Neath. Produced by Darkfield, Realscape Productions and Off Center at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. At the Bird Lot in Rino, 2532 Larimer Street. At TK through Sept. 1. For tickets and info: denvercenter.org and 303-893-4100.
