Blog 4 – Day 3

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

Following on from our discussions yesterday about using AR not as non-diegetic scenery but as a tool within the world of the play, we jumped ahead in the text a couple pages to a moment of military planning between Brutus and Cassius. Brutus favours one tactic, Cassius another, and both attempt to illustrate their points by bringing up immersive battlefield maps.

This integrated well. After only a quick practice, it ceased to feel fiddly and became just another prop we could play with. It was powerful in how it illuminated details of the outside world – the battlefield, locations referenced but never seen – allowing us to visualise the topography and place ourselves there. Without the AR, this information of ancient cities might wash over an audience as archaic detail. Fair enough to be honest.

The tech also suggested immediacy and expediency, injecting pace into the scene while giving the characters’ planning a sense of urgency. After all, in the middle of a war you might not want to be fussing with maps and compasses if you could simply plug into an environment and draw lines directly onto a GPS map from a god’s-eye view.

This felt like our strongest use case so far for how the current state of the tech could be used in-show. It was dramatically clear, not clunky to act with, and didn’t rely on the audience suspending their disbelief.

The last configuration we tested was strapping phones to our chests, each equipped with an AR map that scanned the room and cast it onto screens, showing the actors appearing in a different world. The arrangement of screens meant I could see Brutus in the AR world on the display directly behind the real Brutus I was speaking to. Far from distracting, it worked on my imagination in a strange way, like a mental image of the person made manifest behind them. It subtly informed my physicality. Not simply because I was conscious of the technical need to avoid glitches, but also because my imagination began to buy into the suggestion of this parallel world that lay hovering in my peripheral vision.

I feel this approach could serve as a potential rehearsal tool to help actors work with imaginative environments, images, abstract ideas. On a practical level, it also suggests potential benefits for touring companies — mapping a venue ahead of time so actors can begin making the space their own before arriving, reducing acclimatisation time and allowing performances to lock in more quickly.

Anyway, what a great week with plenty of discoveries and lots of stuff to chew on moving forward…

Blog 3 - Day 2

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

We began the day by populating our set with virtual assets: guns, graffitied walls, Caesar’s bust. A technical issue emerged early on... With the current state of the tech, an actor can’t walk in front of a virtual asset without it looking pretty jarring to the audience. They can only pass behind.

Our first run involved two audience members wearing headsets, experiencing the virtual world overlaid on the real one. Brutus and I occasionally gestured toward assets—a war report on a virtual TV screen, the bust of Caesar, etc. Performing in this setup felt somewhat like acting against a green screen. It became a technical exercise, demanding an unfamiliar form of suspension of disbelief, but not overly obstructive. Still, the ‘depth occlusion’ problem persisted, forcing us to stay confined within a small portion of the stage to avoid stepping in front of the virtual assets and shattering the illusion. This raised the question of whether limiting an actor’s freedom of movement is a necessary trade-off for integrating AR scenery?

In a second go of the scene, after marking out the ‘safe zones,’ I felt a little freer, though still confined—an odd sensation of being squashed by something invisible.

Next, we experimented with a roaming camera. A phone equipped with AR strapped to Brutus’ chest. Performing this way felt unimpeded; neither of us felt the camera’s presence impacted our connection.

A discussion followed: could characters instead use AR/VR as a tool, as they might in real life—for military strategy, mapping, planning missions? This would mean not using AR as a substitute for real life—a hard trick to pull off. The approach could also have a thematic resonance, particularly in the second half, with the fraying of comms between Brutus and Cassius, linking their isolation to their immersion in solitary, virtual worlds. Something to have a look at tomorrow...

At the end of the day, we brought out the big Panasonic camera. We staged the scene first with the camera operator in the world of the play and after did a version treating them as non-diegetic. When the operator was present as a documentarian figure, Cassius and Brutus’ ability to reconcile was undercut. I was aware of crafting a narrative for the camera, turning what was previously sincere into propaganda. Conversely, treating the operator as non-diegetic let the words themselves carry the scene, which felt stronger in that moment. Still, the propaganda, in-world camera guy approach suggested exciting possibilities for other parts of the play.

Blog 2 – Day 1

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

What an amazing space! Playing the argument/tent scene between Cassius and Brutus in the grand rooms of the Old Royal Naval College was deeply immersive. It felt right – like the kind of space where such a quarrel might take place if war were to break out in London.

In performance, I discovered something striking. Whatever ulterior ambition or ego Cassius might carry at this point, the loss of Brutus’ love and respect cuts through everything. The wound felt devastating.

Our preliminary conversations about the application of VR/AR were equally energising. We explored its potential for creating intimacy, for breaking from reality (perhaps a “play within a play” moment: ladies and gentlemen, you may now put on your glasses), or even for fostering a sense of distrust in reality – *cough* Hamlet *cough*?

After our text work, our imaginations lit up with possibilities for Julius Caesar. Could on-stage, non-speaking characters film the action live? If so, who are they – press, war reporters, members of a politician’s team capturing footage for propaganda? Could we witness live editing on stage, with Brutus, for instance, directing a camera operator who uses AR to alter the feed in real time – so that our audience experiences both the “truth” and the “edited truth” side by side? Exciting times ahead.