Who’s Afraid of the Dark?
A Review of Lights Out Damn'd Spot

blackness

I walked down the ramp into the CCRMA listening room, where gentle voices told us to sit on the cushions on top of the floor speakers, and not sit close to the edge of the speaker-pit. I was already having trouble seeing, even though very dim house lights and electric candles guided us into the space. I began to think of that time when I visited the Carlsbad Caverns as a kid. I remembered being guided into an area of pitch black and being told that if one stays too long in utter darkness, they could go blind and lose all sense of time. Will I incur permanent blindness by attending this version of Macbeth? This play is cursed, and I, for one, believe in it. I began to stifle panic, as I realized that there would be some ambient light from the computers running sound cues from behind the curtain.

The actors blew out the (electronic) candle; the CCRMA listening room and all the people vanished, leaving me feeling as if I were alone in some spaceless void. The speakers and my friends sitting close to me dissolved into darkness, and all that remained were five voices, Shakespeare’s words, and my imagination.

A soundscape of wind and eerie, high-pitched cackling opened the play, as the first line floated into the air— “when shall we three meet again?” Immediately, my mind transported me to some dark part of a forest, in the center of a triumvirate of scheming witches. For Macbeth, a play so rooted in its imagery—witches, decapitated Thanes, ghostly swords—I did not realize the imagery would come to life more in the absence of sight.

The production was simple: five actors (Dante Belletti ‘14, Adi Chang ‘18, Weston Gaylord ‘15, Audrey Moyce Ph.D ‘17, Nora Tjossem ‘15) playing all the roles, a pitch black listening room, some props to make sound effects, and a consistent stream of electronically generated soundscapes (Joel Chapman, ‘14, MA ‘15). While the doubling of some of characters threw me for a loop, especially when distinguishing between attendants and named minor characters (but really, sometimes I don’t know who Siward is even when I can see the actors), I was in awe of the vocal metamorphosizing the entire cast achieved. Sometimes I just wanted the sound effects to cut out, so they could go even further with creating the world of Macbeth with their voices. They made distinct choices in the timbre, pitch, and volume that showed a passionate understanding of the text and a verve for character work.

What was even more impressive was the ensemble dynamic they maintained as they navigated through the dark. The actors were as blind as their audience and they had to navigate around the center pit that we sat in. They keenly played off of each other, through love scenes, battle scenes, and banquet scenes. But instead of sight cues, all they used was the mere perception of each other’s energy. This acute awareness is how a true ensemble should function.

Because of this commitment to the text and ensemble, the experience felt truly—yes, I will use this buzzword—immersive. In this modern age, theatre companies seek to create immersion through an explosion of production values—creating disco parties (a la the David Byrne-helmed Here Lies Love), more tactile experiences (I’m looking at you, Sleep No More). But Lights Out Damn’d Spot deprives us of these production values and focuses on one sense (hearing) to immerse us in the story. The vividness of the Bard’s words activate our imaginations, as we create the environments ourselves. Immersive performances seek to give the audience agency over what they see, allowing them to feel implicated in the plot. In Lights Out Damn’d Spot, I felt like I had an ultimate agency as I was able to craft what the show looked like for me in my mind’s eye. Because we were not inundated with obvious imagery, no conceit or aesthetic to go off of, I controlled how I wanted the show to function for me. When my eyes began to adjust to the darkness towards the end of the play, I closed my eyes, for I wanted to continue to be immersed in the world I crafted for myself and not be brought back to the CCRMA listening room.

The immersion also functioned in a way that paralleled us with the characters. Macbeth is a play so driven by its imagery; Macbeth’s motivations of ambitiously murdering those who are in his way to power are fueled by the fact that the witches conjure images of his future. These images poignantly stick in his head, constantly reminding him of what he must do for Thane-dom and then Kingship. The creation of images also linger with the characters, as a marker of their evil and guilt—Lady Macbeth’s unwashable bloody hands, Macbeth seeing an unclutchable dagger. In one particular case of imagery incurred by guilt, the ghost of murdered Banquo appears to Macbeth at a Banquet. For the first time, I realized that nowhere in the dialogue is it explicit that it is Banquo’s ghost—it is a stage direction. The dark capitalized on Macbeth’s paranoia twofold: for the audience are not as familiar with the play, they become immersed as the feast’s guests, passing judgement on Macbeth’s outburst. For me, who cannot get those symbols out of her head, I conjured Banquo’s ghost in that darkness, immersing myself in Macbeth’s frenzied mind.

I still am just as afraid of the dark as I was in Carlsbad Caverns. After experiencing Lights Out Damn’d Spot, I realize the power behind the darkness—its ability to tap into the vivid imaginations within all of us.

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