IP play: The biggest paradox

On monday, we went to watch the performance of Andrés Chamorro' play for his IP: The biggest paradox. The whole play was different from what I have seen. It was about somebody who wanted to be famous, but did not have any talents. Therefore, he kidnaps a writer, an actor, a dancer and a musician. He ties them to the basement of his house, and there he treats them as actors in a play where he is the director. In the end, it is a play within a play. This way, the director can actually talk to the audience as if they were part of the play: this brings the audience to a new level of the experience since they can feel as if they were performing too.

The play started with four of the actors standing in a line, with black boxes on their heads. This black boxes had papers with messages attached to them. A "ding" sound was play every few seconds, and some of the actors would flip the paper in their boxes. In the end, a very interesting effect was achieved where words changed asynchronously delivering a message to the audience. I think this effect helps the audience concentrate more on what is happening and let the audience feel more intrigued by the play. The last message that could be seen was "would you still clap?". With this message on, the boxes where lifted all the way to the top and left there for the whole play.

The play started with this four persons already tied in the basement, waking up, and asking themselves what happened. I found it a little bit confusing at the start: I can say I felt just as confused as a kidnapped person would feel in that situation. Then, the kidnapper came in, and started saying where they where, and why, etc. He had a "directors chair" that was in the same place as all the other chairs in the audience, but had a big sign to indicate that it was for the director. This gave the illusion that the director was also watching the play with the audience. The play also used other ways to incorporate the audience in the play: at some point the director stood up in the chair and asked the audience what they wanted to watch. I thought it was an excellent way of capturing the audience attention.

The play also made use of music to portray the play too. There was a scene where four of the actors walked in squares, one following the other. Since they were all tied to a rope in one end, with the other end the upper bar, the ropes started making a not. The whole scene with them walking in squares and the ropes making a not gave a feeling of desperation to the audience. This was complemented with the music that was being played. I think that using music in plays coordinates the auditive with the visual senses so it brings the message better to the audience. In the end, it is all about the perception of the audience! :)