Seance: Channeling Your Senses

Séance @ Summerhall

Close your eyes, what do you hear? For me, it’s the sound of the cash register, milk being steamed, the clanking of spoons against ceramic cups. As I sit here in the coffee shop writing my reviews for Fringe, I have been taking for granted these ambient sounds. If you take a moment, they’re quite soothing. But typically you drown out these sounds around you as you isolate your mind to your tasks. But, with Darkfield’s Séance, when your sense of sight is removed, you have no choice but to listen. In Séance, you’re locked into a pitch dark shipping container to call upon those spirits from beyond. Will they listen? Will they respond?

They warn as you enter that this may not be for you if you are anyway claustrophobic or afraid of the dark…which I am both. But, as someone who is trying to make immersive theatre their expertise, I knew I must suck it up and power through. It is only 15 minutes, after all. And the 15 minutes are disorienting. They ease you into the dark slowly, but then when you realize that the light isn’t coming back on…your heart begins to race, breathing quickens.

The piece is mainly an aurality piece, playing on your sense of hearing with the use of binaural headphones. Making you feel as if the spirits of the dead are convening around you, communicating with the spirit guide. The tides change to a more ominous tone as the walls start to close in around you, even though you can not see them. This, for me, was the most successful moment of the show. The sounds were playing tricks with my mind making me think I was seeing the space around me shift in the darkness.

The difficult thing about the show though was the use of the headphones. As soon as I put them on, I was constantly aware of them. Because my sense of sight had been taken away, my other senses heightened trying to equalize and ground my body in reality. Feeling the headphones press against the sides of my face, I was always keenly aware that the sounds I was hearing were manufactured. Which is at the core of an aurality piece, but I would have loved to try to construct the same experience with live actors in a larger space. Adding to that, the story is very simple; it’s more about the binaural sounds than creating a complex through line of narrative. So again, I think the show would be stronger if it were a bit longer to facilitate a richer fully realized production instead of relying just on the aural tricks.

Although I was terrified something was going to touch me or jump out at me through the darkness at any moment; I made it all the way through without taking my hands off the table or ripping off my headphones (the guy next to me did). I was close at one point, pressing my hands hard into the table; giving myself a pep talk to power through. But, it was an experience that I would recommend at least once. When do you ever get to mute one of your senses to heighten another? It’s not an experience for the faint hearted, but it’s absolutely worth the fiver for a ticket.

THREE 1/2 STARS