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Theater where you walk around the house. Living the story: what is immersive theater? Is it worth it to go to the show?

The term "immersive" comes from English word immersive- "providing the effect of presence." Use this term occurred to the employees of the British company Punchdrunk- in 2011 they staged the now famous play in New York Sleep no more. Spectators wearing masks wandered around the "McKittrick Hotel" (actually a decorated abandoned warehouse) as they watched the action of the play unfold, vaguely reminiscent of Shakespeare's Macbeth and at the same time film noir of the 1930s.

The feeling of "involvement" in the action appealed to both viewers and critics - so tickets for Sleep no more not easy to get even today, six years after the premiere. And in Shanghai, for example, the Chinese version of the performance has recently started altogether.

Meanwhile, attempts to repeat the success Punchdrunk undertaken around the world. In Russia, immersive performances were initially nicknamed "walkers", by analogy with video games. In 2014, Normansk at the Meyerhold Center, based on the Strugatskys' post-apocalyptic novel Ugly Swans, became one of the brightest walkers. "Normansk" involved all seven floors of the TsIM, and turned out to be a performance as spectacular as it was costly - and therefore it was shown only 13 times.

THE PRESENT

In 2015 Muscovites were shown for the first time "Russian tales" Kirill Serebrennikov at the Gogol Center. In fact, this is not one, but twelve short performances, each of which is dedicated to one of the tales of Alexander Afanasiev. Here and "Gingerbread Man", and "Marya Morevna", and "The Animals in the Pit". Fairy tales were shown simultaneously in the large, small and rehearsal halls, as well as in the foyer on the second floor. It would be a stretch to call Russian Fairy Tales an immersive performance in the full sense of the word, due to the fact that you can wander here only as part of one of three groups. No independence: each group has its own route. Accordingly, to watch all 12 mini-performances, you need to come three times.

"Russian tales"

To the advent "Black Russian" in 2016, it became clear that immersive theater needed separate buildings in which nothing but the performance would take place. Director Maxim Didenko chose Spiridonov's mansion built in the 19th century for his project. Almost on whole year the mansion turned into the "Troekurov's house" from "Dubrovsky" by Alexander Pushkin. However, in "Black Russian" little is reminiscent of the textbook plot: there are half-naked maids, the living dead and black dumplings, which are supposed to feed the artists. The project was choreographed by Evgeny Kulagin, whose most notable work — "Muller machine", the scandalous "performance with naked people" at the Gogol Center.

"Black Russian"

The main drawback of the performance is the same as that of Russian Fairy Tales. At the entrance, guests were given masks of owls, foxes or deer, classifying them as one of the groups. Separating and walking alone is prohibited.

A couple of months after the premiere of The Black Russian, another 19th-century mansion showed "Returned". The play was staged by an American company Journey Lab, most closely following the example Punchdrunk And Sleep no more. Here you can arbitrarily, and as you please, wander around the four floors of the performance mansion.

Returned is based on the play Ghosts by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, which explores the themes of moral choice, incest and euthanasia. These are 240 scenes that the actors act out in 50 rooms of the mansion. Some of them replicate the interior of a typical Scandinavian house, while others resemble scenes from horror films.

"Returned"

On The Returned, each viewer sees only fragments of the tragedy and must independently restore complete picture what is happening. As it turns out, this activity is quite tiring - and therefore you can take a break and have a drink in the bar on the ground floor. And then return to watching - if only because of the well-staged orgy scene.

FUTURE

Theater festival "Tolstoy Weekend» in Yasnaya Polyana, they showed the play “Green Stick” of the theater Gruppo Baston Verde. The plot is dedicated to the young Leo Nikolayevich: as a child, his elder brother Nikolai told him that the secret of happiness was scratched on a green stick that was lost somewhere on the estate. Spectators put on Tolstoy shirts and masks with the face of the writer, and then go on an hour and a half journey through the estate. Before them unfold either scenes from the writer's childhood, or fantasies about the search for the meaning of life.

There is a school where you will be asked to write a dictation, and a lunch in the middle of the field, and a duel. The performance was a success - and therefore negotiations are underway to show it in Yasnaya Polyana on a regular basis.

"Green stick"

In Moscow, in turn, Experience Space opens in July. In the mansion on Cannon Street you can see two works of the Belgian company Ontroerend Goed- last year's premiere of "Your game" and new performance smile off. These are the so-called “performances for one spectator”. In "Your Game" the viewer finds himself in a labyrinth of rooms with mirrors and video projections, where, through communication with guides-actors, he discovers his "real self". IN smile off everything is based on smells, sounds and touches, as the spectator remains sitting in a chair with a blindfold over his eyes and his hands tied throughout the performance.

Immersive performances (also known as promenade performances and quest performances) have not lost popularity among residents of both capitals for the second year. And yet, to call the ongoing action a performance would not be very correct, because the viewer does not just watch what is happening on the stage, but freely moves inside the scenery, feeling more like a participant. We propose to figure it out together - what is a fashionable and unusual direction of art?

Immersive performance - what is it and where does it originate?

The word itself comes from English verb to immerse, which means "to immerse". This definition of the genre was given by its founders from the British theater troupe PunchDrunk. The first production of this kind was released back in 2000 in London. It was the play "Woyzeck" by Georg Buchner and it took place in abandoned army warehouses, where the audience could safely walk around the territory, exploring the world of the work. The troupe experimented with creating atmosphere and immersed the audience in the ongoing action so much that each person felt like the same actor. As a result theater project was a great success and soon immersive performances began to appear around the world like mushrooms after rain.

Today's productions have stepped even further in "immersion" - if before the audience simply walked among the actors, wearing masks, now they can take a direct part in what is happening! Imagine - during the performance they can enter into a dialogue with you, take you to another room, dance or kiss you playfully. You may be asked for help, given a task, or even kidnapped - you must admit, all this goes beyond the theater we are used to and is amazing!

Immersive performance quest can make you run around in search of necessary items and break your head over tricky riddles, and experimental projects will offer to interact with ordinary passers-by at all. Interested and want to go? Then we will talk about the most original ideas from the theaters of both capitals!

Pushkin in the interior

One of the most popular productions in Moscow today can rightly be called " Black Russian"- a performance staged based on Pushkin's "Dubrovsky". The action takes place in the present old mansion where the audience travels with the actors. To be more precise, all visitors are divided into three large groups, each of which is led along a separate route. You are given masks - foxes, owls or deer, depending on the group. Masha takes the foxes, Dubrovsky takes the deer, and the owls follow Troekurov.

Then the audience can only go after the guides and observe the development of events, while exploring the Spiridonov mansion. And there is something to see here! The organizers fit in one building a lot of locations, each of which has a moment of interactivity. Drink black vodka with black sausage in the cafeteria? Please! Stroking a live rooster in a barn? As you wish! It is worth noting that

Of course, it was not so easy to buy tickets to such an immersive theater, but now it has died down.

The haunted house - an immersive performance

No, we are not talking about ordinary horror rooms, but about a performance based on the work of Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts". The production has nothing to do with mysticism, but tells more about human vices and "skeletons in the closet" that can lurk even in the most venerable family.

The action takes place in a mansion with no fewer locations than in the previous performance. Moreover, you can be in a particular room quite by accident - the actors are pulling the audience into what is happening with might and main, so be prepared for surprises! There are no guides and movement schemes here, so if one of the participants has not “caught” you yet, you can freely move around the entire mansion, exploring the scenery and watching the events unfold.

Of particular note is the scandalous orgy scene, for which many lovers of piquant moments and bold decisions go. By and large, it is because of her that viewers are strictly not younger than 18 years old, although the episode is actually not just a way to shock the audience, but a director's move that explains all the intricacies of the fate of the characters. By reviews to this immersive performance, the scene does not look vulgar or vulgar.

If you are not just chasing interesting sensations, but also want to capture the essence, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the original in advance, especially since the book really deserves attention. Then you will meet the characters of the production as good friends, and the performance will rather complement the impression than confuse you.

Today, the world is becoming more and more popular immersive theater, it is also a promenade theater, or a walking theater. How does an immersive theater differ from a traditional one, and why does it look like a quest or a computer game that comes to life?

DIVE IN THE WALK

The phenomenon of immersiveness (from the English. immersive - “creating the effect of presence, immersion”) is one of the main trends modern industry entertainment. Today, literally everything has become immersive: it has already ceased to seem like something from the field science fiction augmented and a virtual reality; everything is clear about computer games; the genre of cinema is slowly but surely becoming immersive (if you are in London, be sure to check out Secret Cinema); the first immersive books have already appeared; city quests are becoming more and more popular. Immersive theater has become the logical result of several trends - both in contemporary directing and in the field of urban leisure.

An immersive performance creates the effect of complete immersion of the viewer in the plot of the production, it is a theater of involvement, where the viewer is a full participant in what is happening. At any moment, the actors can start direct interaction with the viewer - for example, they can blindfold the viewer and lead him by the hand to another room and leave him there, they can hug or kiss, or they can just look eye to eye for a long time.

Remember Shakespeare's famous formula: "The whole world is a theater, and the people in it are actors"? Not in immersive theater auditorium in the traditional sense of the word, which means that there is no so-called “fourth wall” separating actors from spectators. The action of the promenade theater develops simultaneously in different locations. The directors, in turn, offer the public new behavioral scenarios, giving it a more active role: viewers of walk-through performances can choose their own route - this or that plot line - and move from one location to another, and somewhere even influence what is happening . Such a performance is made up of different plots, just as pieces are put together in a mosaic.

IMMERSIVE THEATER IN THE WORLD…

Sleep No More - impersonal "total" performance

The London-based band PunchDrunk is considered to be the legislator of the immersive theater genre, famous for immersing the viewer in a space similar in atmosphere to mysterious paintings legendary filmmakers Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch.

One of the most famous performances of the immersive theater genre - famous production Sleep No More, which has been capturing the imagination of New York audiences for years. The show is based on William Shakespeare's Macbeth. The play is on in a huge abandoned five-story McKittrick hotel, which sometimes resembles an endless labyrinth of suddenly materialized nightmares. At the entrance, all comers are asked to wear a white Venetian mask, which they undertake not to take off during the entire production. The audience is left to their own devices in a 1930s psychiatric ward, cemetery and hotel where performance and installation meet site-specific choreography.

The layered action is mesmerizing: in Sleep No More, you can easily feel like a voyeur and see how ghost-like characters make love, kill each other, wash off the blood in the bathroom. Here you can do everything that is strictly forbidden in a traditional theater - touch the scenery and make contact with the "props", but you need to be prepared for the fact that the inhabitants of an abandoned hotel can come into contact with you.

Then She Fell - chamber individual adventure

Contemporary immersive theater cannot be imagined without the productions of the creative production team Third Rail Projects, known for their experimental performances in unusual locations, combining elements of theatre, dance, sound and art installations and unusual choreography.

One of the team's most ambitious productions is Then She Fell, set in an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Brooklyn in New York. Unlike Sleep No More, where about 300 impersonal viewers are left to their own devices, Then She Fell has a much more intimate and chamber atmosphere. In this performance based on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, 8 actors and only 15 spectators are involved, who are divided into small groups, whose routes are thought out and verified by the directors. The interaction with the viewer here is the most literal: the audience of the performance can easily find themselves one on one with the actor, say, combing the actress playing Alice.

The production team at Third Rail Projects recently unveiled their new immersive spectacle in New York- Grand Paradise - a production about a family going on vacation to a resort, where various metamorphoses take place with them.

… AND IN MOSCOW

If you are not yet familiar with the theater of involvement, then a reasonable question is: how to choose a production for the first test so as not to be disappointed? Here are four of the best immersive performances currently on in the capital.

1. "Your game»

This summer, the Belgian theater team Ontroerend Goed and impresario Fedor Yelyutin (who previously brought a promenade through the city Remote to Moscow) presented Moscow with a new individual interactive experience for one person, Your Game. The performance lasts about 30–35 minutes and takes place in the Tsvetnoy department store. A Game of You - as the play is called in the original - has already been played at theater festivals in Edinburgh and Avignon, but the Russian version differs in that it takes place not in an art cluster or theater building, but in a busy shopping center.

"The most exciting performance of the season ... is you," says the project's website. Indeed, one can hardly think of a more fast way look at yourself through the eyes of another person and understand how you seem to others.

2. "Black Russian»

In September of this year, one of the main theatrical newsmakers of recent times, Maxim Didenko and theater company Ecstàtic presented Moscow with the first immersive musical based on the unfinished novel by A.S. Pushkin "Dubrovsky". The space of the old Moscow mansion of Spiridonov turned into Troekurov's house, where a ballroom, a dining room, a bedroom, a bathhouse, an office, a barn and even a forest appeared. At the beginning of the performance, all spectators are divided into three groups that follow different routes for the heroes of the performance and are given the appropriate masks - owls, deer and foxes.

According to the creators of the performance, "Black Russian" is, first of all, a performance of sensations that affects the viewer at the level of all senses. So, in the barn it smells of freshly cut hay, in the kitchen - pancakes and meat, in the bedroom of Masha Troekurova - flowers. Spectators are treated to black dumplings, herbal tinctures and other dishes.

3. Moscow-2048»

"MSK 2048" is a new large-scale game in reality from the famous quest network "Claustrophobia" and the director of the "Gogol Center" Alexander Sozonov. "MSK 2048" develops the concept of an immersive promenade theater that combines role play, theater-promenade and quest. The plot unfolds in a world that has survived a global catastrophe, all players are refugees who want to quickly move from the radioactive wastelands to Greater Moscow. To enter the city, you need a visa, which can be obtained at the asylum checkpoint.

It's hard to come up with The best way feel like a hero of a video game "in real life"! "MSK 2048" completely erases the barriers between actors and spectators, the stage and auditorium, game conventions and real life. The players are in charge actors own unique stories, performing the tasks of the actors - the outcome of the game depends on everyone.

4. "Russian tales»

"Russian Tales" - a promenade performance from Alexander Sozonov and Ilya Shagalov, staged in Russian folk tales from the famous Afanasiev collection. There are "Tales" in the "Gogol Center". For more than a year, the artists spent on an expedition around the country to see how Rus' lives and listen to live vernacular. The result is a lively immersive promenade performance that combines different genres- sketches, observations, fantasies of the young acting generation on the theme of Russian fairy tales, philosophical parables, ballads, serenades, romances, bard songs, rock and rock and roll.

"Russian Fairy Tales" are playing all over the theater at the same time. Before the start of the performance, the audience chooses their path from the three proposed - there are three groups of spectators, three verified paths and three different viewing experiences. In the finale, everyone joins in a large hall, the epilogue of Russian Fairy Tales is the same.

The phenomenon of immersiveness (from the English. immersive - "creating the effect of presence, immersion") is one of the main trends in the modern entertainment industry. Today, literally everything has become immersive: augmented and virtual reality has already ceased to seem like something from the realm of science fiction; everything is clear about computer games; the genre of cinema is slowly but surely becoming immersive (if you are in London, be sure to check out Secret Cinema); the first immersive books have already appeared; city quests are becoming more and more popular. Immersive theater has become the logical result of several trends - both in contemporary directing and in the field of urban leisure.

Remember Shakespeare's famous formula: "The whole world is a theater, and the people in it are actors"? In immersive theater, there is no auditorium in the traditional sense of the word, which means there is no so-called “fourth wall” separating actors from spectators. The action of the promenade theater develops simultaneously in different locations. The directors, in turn, offer the public new behavioral scenarios, giving it a more active role: viewers of walk-through performances can choose their own route - this or that plot line - and move from one location to another, and somewhere even influence what is happening . Such a performance is made up of different plots, just as pieces are put together in a mosaic.

Immersive theater in the world

Sleep No More - impersonal "total" performance

London-based PunchDrunk is considered to be the legislator of the immersive theater genre, famous for immersing the viewer in a space similar in atmosphere to the mysterious paintings of the legendary film directors Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch.

One of the most famous performances of the immersive theater genre is the famous production of Sleep No More, which has been capturing the imagination of New York audiences for years. The show is based on William Shakespeare's Macbeth. The performance takes place in a huge abandoned five-story McKittrick hotel, which sometimes resembles an endless labyrinth of suddenly materialized nightmares. At the entrance, all comers are asked to wear a white Venetian mask, which they undertake not to take off during the entire performance. The audience is left to their own devices in a 1930s psychiatric ward, cemetery and hotel where performance and installation meet site-specific choreography.

Then She Fell - chamber individual adventure

One of the team's most ambitious productions is Then She Fell, set in an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Brooklyn, New York. Unlike Sleep No More, where about 300 impersonal viewers are left to their own devices, Then She Fell has a much more intimate and chamber atmosphere. In this performance based on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, 8 actors and only 15 spectators are involved, who are divided into small groups, whose routes are thought out and verified by the directors. The interaction with the viewer here is the most literal: the audience of the performance can easily find themselves one on one with the actor, say, combing the actress playing Alice.

The production team at Third Rail Projects recently unveiled their new immersive New York production, Grand Paradise, about a family going on vacation to a resort where they undergo various metamorphoses.

What is immersive in Moscow?

1. "Your game»

"The most exciting performance of the season ... is you," says the project's website. Indeed, there is hardly a faster way to look at yourself through the eyes of another person and understand how you appear to others.

2. "Black Russian»

In September of this year, one of the main theatrical newsmakers of recent times, Maxim Didenko, and the Ecstàtic theater company presented Moscow with the first immersive musical based on the unfinished novel by A.S. Pushkin "Dubrovsky". The space of the old Moscow mansion of Spiridonov turned into Troekurov's house, where a ballroom, a dining room, a bedroom, a bathhouse, an office, a barn and even a forest appeared. At the beginning of the performance, all spectators are divided into three groups that follow different routes for the heroes of the performance and are given the appropriate masks - owls, deer and foxes.

3. Moscow-2048»

"MSK 2048" is a new large-scale game in reality from the famous quest network "Claustrophobia" and the director of the "Gogol Center" Alexander Sozonov. MSK 2048 develops the concept of an immersive promenade theater that combines a role-playing game, a promenade theater and a quest. The plot unfolds in a world that has survived a global catastrophe, all players are refugees who want to quickly move from the radioactive wastelands to Greater Moscow. To enter the city, you need a visa, which can be obtained at the asylum checkpoint.

It's hard to think of a better way to feel like a real-life video game hero! "MSK 2048" completely erases the barriers between actors and spectators, stage and auditorium, game conventions and real life. Players become the protagonists of their own unique stories by completing the tasks of the actors - the outcome of the game depends on everyone.

4. "Russian tales»

"Russian Fairy Tales" is a promenade performance by Alexander Sozonov and Ilya Shagalov, based on Russian folk tales from the famous Afanasiev collection. There are "Tales" in the "Gogol Center". For more than a year, the artists spent on an expedition around the country to see how Rus' lives and to listen to the living folk language. The result is a lively immersive performance-promenade that combines different genres - sketches, observations, fantasies of the young acting generation on the theme of Russian fairy tales, philosophical parables, ballads, serenades, romances, bard songs, rock and rock and roll.

In late November and early December, the Yeltsin Center hosted the Territory festival, where Yekaterinburg residents could get acquainted with latest trends V contemporary theater. As part of educational program festival theater critics Roman Dolzhansky and Alexey Kiselev spoke about new theatrical terms and paid special attention to immersive theatre. Let's talk about what they mean.

As Roman Dolzhansky immediately noted in his lecture “New theatrical terms”, immersive performances are at the peak of their popularity today. It is them that today's theatergoers put in the first place.

“An immersive performance creates the effect of complete immersion of the viewer into the plot of the production. The viewer becomes part of what is happening. Such a theater is also called "quest theater", "promenade theater" or "walking theater"

Today, this kind of action captured everything theater scenes, inviting the audience to leave their usual places in the hall and go on a journey through the world of book characters. “You come to a theater or a gallery and become a participant in this art - you have to touch something at the exhibition for something to appear on it, you have to go somewhere for part of the performance to begin. This is an art that operates with other senses besides vision. The form changes, so the feeling also changes. In other words, this art does not exist without you,” says Alexey Kiselev. He correlates this theater genre with computer games, where the player is given the opportunity to take the place of the protagonist.

From English, the phrase "immersive theater" is translated as "the theater of involvement." This is what conveys it main point- the actor at any time can involve the viewer in the production. Kiss, touch, engage in dialogue with him. The first immersive production is the show "Sleep No More" by the British group "Punchdrunk", which was based on the line of Shakespeare's "Macbeth", but placed in the 30s of the 20th century. The performance took place on the site of a five-story hotel, where actors and spectators in white masks ran around the offices and bars without talking or taking off their masks. The production made quite a splash in the 2000s, but did not receive distribution in Russia. Only ten years later, the play “Normansk” was released in Moscow, in which the audience walked around the city, inhabited by indigo children and “little biters” (this is how the authors designated “internally independent people with talent not buried in the ground”).

In Yekaterinburg, critics did not find such "walking theatres". “Maybe they are, but they just haven’t received much distribution. Of course, you have a large number of quests, which many equate to a promenade theater. Of course, they are very bright, interesting, and the audience there also take the place of the characters and wander around the provided location. Their main difference is that in immersive performance play with the audience professional actors, whose task is not to confuse them, not to scare them, as in most quests today, but to immerse them in the necessary plot, ”Alexey Kiselev emphasized.

Among the iconic immersive performances for Russia, Dolzhansky and Kislev singled out the performance-walker “S.T.A.L.K.E.R”, staged by the Gogol Center based on the eponymous computer game. And it, in turn, is made based on the book of the Strugatsky brothers. Spectators put on headphones, a protective suit and follow in the footsteps of the characters in the game. The main task is to “absorb” the plasticity of the computer hero.

In Cathy Mitchell's Christine, the director makes the minor heroine of August Strindberg's play Miss Julie the main character, which gives the effect of plot uncertainty. The viewer cannot see the whole picture because he is traveling the world. minor character. Behind the walls you can hear the sounds of other heroes, but this is just an illusion. The viewer sees through the eyes of a secondary heroine, and what happens behind the wall is a simultaneous action.

"The Returned" takes place in an early 19th century mansion in the center of Moscow. The house has 4 floors and about 50 rooms, in each of which a bewitching action is played out. The production is based on Henrik Ibsen's play "Ghosts". For a long time it was banned both in Russia and in Europe, so such an interest in the performance today is quite understandable.

Alexei Kiselev named the most unusual immersive production " May night» Moscow Puppet Theatre. This performance is impossible to see - there is a bandage on the eyes of the audience. The performance is known to the audience through tactile and taste sensations, smells, sounds: the actors recreate the splashing of water, the sound of the wind and even feed those who came.

Roman Dolzhansky and Aleksey Kiselev are sure that the theater of engagement is at the peak of its popularity today and will be in demand for a long time to come. After all, getting into the atmosphere of an immersive performance, the audience briefly falls out of real life. And let them understand that this is all an illusion, they want to return to a new unknown world again and again.

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