There’s immersive theatre, and then there’s immersive theatre.
What happens when all the lights go out? That’s the heart of the experience offered by Darkfield, a UK company that’s set up shop in Toronto with two of their shows, Séance and Flight. It sounds simple enough, but the premise becomes a carefully constructed show where the audience’s own experiences and imagination play a big role.
Darkfield takes place inside meticulously outfitted shipping containers, and Toronto’s Stackt Market, shipping container marketplace with friendly public spaces, is the obvious and ideal setting for the installation. Séance and Flight will be set up there until November 9, 2025.
What Is Darkfield?
Darkfield was created by Glen Neath and David Rosenberg in the UK. Rosenberg had a background in immersive and experimental theatre, having worked previously with companies such as Shunt, Requardt&Rosenberg and Wiretapper. The two founded Darkfield in 2016, and staged their first show, Séance, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2017.
From the UK, Darkfield has toured to Australia, Asia, Mexico, and North America, reaching more than 700,000 people, and has been featured in BFI London Film Festival, Venice, IDFA, Tribeca, Raindance, and other major international film festivals. In 2021, the company won Columbia’s Digital Storytelling Lab’s Breakthrough Award.
The shows take place inside shipping containers, which allow Darkfield to completely control the environment. The interiors are meticulously designed in realistic detail. Each participant sits in a specific seat, and puts on a pair of headphones.
The headphones deliver a 360 degree audio experience in binaural sound, recorded with microphones arranged like human ears. The process accurately produces a recording that emulates the way we actually hear sound within a space.
Hot tip: You’ll hear the experience based on where you sit in the shipping container; the most intense experiences are to be had in the middle of the room.
However, the shows are also designed to make each participant feel like they’re in the centre of the action.
Without giving too much away, movements within the environment add to the effect.
Séance and Flight
In Séance, a long table is set with chairs on either side. The ornate chairs, upholstered in red velvet, come from an old theatre in Australia. Flight is set up as one side of an aircraft, and uses genuine airplane seats, overhead luggage cabins, and other authentic details.
Participants in Séance put both hands on the table, and the story begins, one (of course) about spirits.
In Flight, it’s takeoff time, and while the show plays with our fears about flying, it also adds an otherworldly, supernatural edge to the narrative.
In complete blackout conditions, the kind we urban dwellers seldom experience, the spatialized audio, combined with movement effects, trick and suggest. Conversations and interactions seem to be happening with some of the other participants, just over there down the table or airplane aisle…
But are they really?
A voice may seem to whisper in your ear, coming from just over your shoulder.
Am I… am I the chosen one?
When the sighted are deprived of sight, the brain doesn’t know what to believe. It’s as open as your own imagination can take it. Do you believe in ghosts? Are you scared of flying? Your own preoccupations and history will play into how the experience unfolds.
Final Thoughts
In a closed environment, in the dark, anything seems possible. The sound is crisp and clear, and draws you into the world of the show. Darkfield has several different shows on tour all over the world, and success may mean that Toronto will see more of them.
The fearless and open minded are likely to have the best time.
Both shows are open daily until November 9; find tickets and more details [HERE].
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