101

In the dank and dark underbelly of the teeming C venues, ONEOHONE Theatre are preparing a triptych of shows where we, the audience, are going to be hurled into the heart of the action.

If increasingly worn buzzwords like “interactive”, “immersive” and “audience-driven” set your bullshit antennae twitching, then you might want to give this one a wide berth. But whereas all too often participatory and/or site-specific/walkabout theatre forgoes substance and storyline for style and the sensory, today’s folksy tale of sailors and sirens mostly manages to avoid the major pitfalls.

We’re split up into two groups and taught—cub camp-style—a few reactions, gestures and phrases to use in certain scenarios. As sailors, our unwavering allegiance to our beloved prince is surely to be tested by our salty adversaries.

And so it proves. Over the course of the next 40 minutes, we’re blindfolded, touched, tempted, and together we create a wedding, a dance and witness a human sacrifice. Alongside the cast’s voodoo torch songs, shanties and occasional bursts of Corinthians, the atmosphere is one of insidious menace, punctuated by a tragic conclusion which may or may not be a meditation on the endurance of love, the danger of desire or just a mournful myth of heartbreak on the high seas. It may be none of these, in fact, but despite the general blurriness and the occasional actor slipping character, there’s enough here to leave a lasting impression, not least upon the audience-member-turned-martyr left prone at the end.