Immersive theatre seeks to give experience to its audience by involving and surrounding them with and in the production at hand. Wondermart, a 2007 English audio-performance piece written by Silvia Mercuriali in collaboration with Matt Rudkin and Tommaso Perego, uses two predominant strategies to immerse the audience of single listeners — inhabiting and awareness. The techniques entailed in these strategies are inherent to the immersive style; placing audience members inside a character, building a world-view around them, and forcing upon them new forms of awareness of self and surroundings. These techniques combine to create a sense of uneasy compliance in Wondermart, culminating in a scenario where the listener is coaxed into planning how
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A nervous state has already been developed by the Guide, through moments such as when she asks the listener to “find someone who looks slightly more powerful than you” and “follow them”.13 The listener becomes a stalker — with an overshadowing “question of whether this is an ethical action” — where the power-balance is out of the listeners favor elevating the sense of unease.14 Warned that more powerful shopper may begin to “sense a threat”, the listener is reassured little by the opening disclaimer “you are doing nothing wrong”.15 The piece works hard to create a sense of unease in such a normalised and ritualistic environment, aided more generally by the distancing of the listener to their surrounding discussed earlier. Subtly also, the Guide suggest a compliant state in the listener through didactic expressions of subservience. She says; “keep following my instructions” and “do everything I tell you to”, almost as an ultimatum — follow her directions or risk consequences in the ‘foreign’ environment being presented.16 In such a compliant state, the directions to contemplate stealing from the supermarket are especially effective. The wording of the Guides’ directions become very important, as she says “slowly find yourself wondering what would happen if you were to steal” an item.17 The onus is placed on the listener — the Guide is not telling them to steal rather prompting “you” to imagine such a scenario. The sense of awareness already developed is heightened in this moment to instill in the listener the nerve-racking sensation of checking to “see any cameras” and “counting them”. The stage directions of the Guide stop forcing the listener to do things and instead prompts them to observe their own breath, body heat and heart pumping. The Guide no
A nervous state has already been developed by the Guide, through moments such as when she asks the listener to “find someone who looks slightly more powerful than you” and “follow them”.13 The listener becomes a stalker — with an overshadowing “question of whether this is an ethical action” — where the power-balance is out of the listeners favor elevating the sense of unease.14 Warned that more powerful shopper may begin to “sense a threat”, the listener is reassured little by the opening disclaimer “you are doing nothing wrong”.15 The piece works hard to create a sense of unease in such a normalised and ritualistic environment, aided more generally by the distancing of the listener to their surrounding discussed earlier. Subtly also, the Guide suggest a compliant state in the listener through didactic expressions of subservience. She says; “keep following my instructions” and “do everything I tell you to”, almost as an ultimatum — follow her directions or risk consequences in the ‘foreign’ environment being presented.16 In such a compliant state, the directions to contemplate stealing from the supermarket are especially effective. The wording of the Guides’ directions become very important, as she says “slowly find yourself wondering what would happen if you were to steal” an item.17 The onus is placed on the listener — the Guide is not telling them to steal rather prompting “you” to imagine such a scenario. The sense of awareness already developed is heightened in this moment to instill in the listener the nerve-racking sensation of checking to “see any cameras” and “counting them”. The stage directions of the Guide stop forcing the listener to do things and instead prompts them to observe their own breath, body heat and heart pumping. The Guide no