Blog 1 – Pre-workshop

Mylo McDonald in our 2023 production of The Changeling taken by Charlie Flint

This workshop is the first time in my career that I’ve truly had no idea what to expect — beyond the usual surprises you open yourself up to as an actor. I’m familiar with the Lazarus text process and a huge fan of Julius Caesar, but when it comes to AR and VR, I’m something of a luddite. (I’ve only used it two or three times).

I’ve often had mixed feelings about productions that rely heavily on screens. Some I’ve found very powerful, others alienating. That said, I was profoundly struck the first time I tried VR about five years ago at drama school (on a friend’s headset — he was a Twitch streamer in his spare time). The experience embedded itself in my memory as if it were lived experience, quite unlike the memory of watching a film, which remains tied to the act of sitting in front of a screen.

I sense that the blending of virtual and physical worlds will become an increasingly familiar experience. I feel like an old man admitting that I’m instinctively wary of it, yet the world or virtual/augmented reality undeniably cracks open an entire universe of human-made creativity to be felt as lived experience.

There’s no reason that that can’t be a beautiful thing. The tension between my existing biases and my belief in the inevitability and vast potential of VR/AR is part of what excites me about exploring its possibilities within the art form I love.

I’m incredibly excited and curious to experience first-hand how VR and AR impacts an actor’s work. How it affects or supports the fundamentals of acting, such as listening, whether it aids or impedes an actor’s ability to be present, and what effect it has on the imagination for a performer and for an audience. Will its impact be similar to familiar theatre tech, like lighting and mics? Or will an actor have to adapt substantially more so when working with AR?