Our phones have become portals to global disasters. Social media posts. Stories. Alerts. Newsfeeds. It’s constant. From glowing screens, causes compete for our attention, beseeching us through campaigners, activists and aid organisations to act immediately, urgently, and to pledge our support by expending time, energy and money.
This is the dilemma that writer-director Vidya Rajan and digital artist Sam Mcgilp, along with their dramaturg Andrew Sutherland, explore in Crisis Actor, their latest work for Arts House. The term refers to the people who play victims in disaster simulations used to train emergency personnel.
Performers Jean Bachoura and Jess Nyanda Moyle from upcoming show, Crisis Actor.Credit: Simon Schluter
Two performers, Jean Bachoura and Jess Nyanda Moyle, undertake a series of challenges to prove that they are the worthiest victim — and there can be only one victor. The audience, who are split into teams representing each player, determines the winner of each round by judging their ability to elicit their attention and empathy, responding to prompts through an app on their phone.
“It’s set in a speculative future, which is just our present, where people are competing to memorialise disasters. It’s a reality-TV competition meets live-gaming experience, and the actors are competing to be the best victim they can be,” says Rajan.
The show leans into eco-horror and the existential human fear that the world is ending — but twists things so they play out in a silly, farcical way. Crisis Actor has been structured to cater to “second screen viewing behaviours” – like watching television while being on your smartphone – to mirror how we operate in day-to-day life. The stage is positioned in the middle, with the audience divided across two sides, which proposes an interesting challenge for lighting and blocking the performers’ moves.
“It’s testing how you pay attention to the bodies that are on stage,” says Rajan. “Like any kind of performance, what feelings does it create for the audience that reveals something about their own attitudes towards victimhood or attention?”
‘It’ll be dark and playful, and you’ll leave being like, who am I?’
Vidya Rajan, playwright
A large screen looms above the set, where avatars of each player exist in a gamified version of the stage. Bachoura and Moyle wear motion capture sensors across their faces and bodies, so as they move, so do their avatars. Alongside voting functionality, the app enables audiences to react with emojis, post comments and chat, which appears on vertical screens either side of stage. Ultimately, the audience influences the progress of the game, paving the way for a different journey and conclusion each night.
“The algorithms and the platforms we’re on also determine where we put our attention, and they’re trying to distract us constantly. We found in testing, people got really mesmerised by chatting, to the point where, it was like, well, you’ve got to also look at the actors,” says Mcgilp.
Rajan adds: “Some people get really competitive and try to get their person to win.”
Web developer Ruby Quail was also integral to the project, ensuring the whole app experience is accessible to screen and braille readers for blind and low-vision audience members. It also has audio description companions if required.
The show brings together Rajan’s experience in making performance and participatory work for both live and digital spaces, as well as Mcgilp’s skills in multimedia, each expanding on their expertise by learning from the other. What they share is that they’re both part of the internet generation, they both understand what it means to be chronically online, and are concerned about how technology impacts our humanity. But they aren’t interested in producing earnest shows.
“It’ll be dark and playful, and you’ll leave being like, who am I? What do I think about this stuff in the world?” says Rajan.
Mcgilp adds: “I definitely hope it’s an experience that audiences have never had before. I hope that it’s exhilarating, but also unsettling.”
Crisis Actor is at Arts House from August 27 to 31 as part of Now or Never.
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