Darkfield are back at the Fringe with Arcade, their latest shipping container based adventure in the dark. This time the interactivity has been ramped up, offering audiences a chance to negotiate a story which is only slightly less opaque than the thick darkness of the performance space.
a fine half an hour with more than a little replayability value
For the uninitiated, Darkfield constructs drama via immersive, binaural soundscapes. As an audience member, you go in, slip on a pair of headphones, get plunged into I-can’t-see-my-hand-in-front-of-my-face levels of darkness, and have at it as the story plays through your ears over the course of around 25 minutes.
Previously they’ve taken listeners through a coma experience, a seance, a flight, and a hotel which seemed to lie somewhere on the border between life and death. They’re experiences unlike any other at the Fringe, and as time has gone by the company has continued to innovate, adding features to deepen listener engagement.
The latest experience adds the occasional sprinkle of water, puff of air, and the ability to make yes/no decisions and spend tokens to allow audience members to shape the story which they are involved in. It’s a very engaging format, and if you haven’t had the chance to experience one of Darkfield’s shows yet then as long as you don’t have a crippling fear of the dark, it’s well-worth trying out.
While the format itself is reason enough to give the show a try, the content is less enticing. You start as the character Milk and are prompted to make several decisions and choices as you negotiate some sort of war zone, for some sort of reason. It’s murky stuff which adds less portentous, dramatic ambiguity than it does mild confusion.
Still, it’s easy to get swept away in the fun of making choices and learning the consequences, and from discussions following the conclusion of the event there it’s clear there were some wildly different dramatic outcomes available. It all makes for a fine half an hour with more than a little replayability value.
