INTERVIEW | David Rosenberg and Glen Neath, DARKFIELD

A brand-new immersive theatre show is heading to Nottingham and Gloucester this Spring. Brought to life by the pioneer producers of innovative, immersive experiences - DARKFIELD will present a new audio experience. ARCADE uses the nostalgic aesthetic of 1980s video games in the latest immersive audio experience. Ahead of its opening, we spoke with the co-founders David Rosenberg and Glen Neath to find out more. 

1. To begin with, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your journey into your career?

Darkfield co-founders David Rosenberg and Glen Neath shared an interest in the relationship of the show content to the audience and started working together in 2012. David had been working with a company called Shunt for over 10 years, who made large-scale work in found spaces that moved audiences around. Glen had made headphone shows for unrehearsed actors and audiences, as well as written novels and plays for radio. They made two shows for theatres, using binaural sound and darkness, before Darkfield was founded in 2016. 

2. DARKFIELD are pioneer producers of innovative, immersive experiences at the forefront of technology and theatre. We’re seeing a lot of this emerging across the industry right now - what do you think it is about it that is attracting audiences?

It feels as if audiences are keen to feel as if they have some agency in the work they are experiencing, to feel active in the world of the show. Immersive has become a word that everyone seems to want to attach to the show they are presenting. 

3. Why do you think technology and theatre work so hand in hand together?

For us technology has been a way to work our particular brand of magic. By placing the audience in the dark we have been able to create doubt in their minds around what is actually happening in the spaces they are sitting in. A lot of our thinking is around the tiny moments that convince the audience they have been acknowledged. The technologies we have employed have all been to this end.

4. Your new experience ARCADE is the latest immersive audio experience - can you tell us a little bit about where the idea of this work came from?

Our previous show, Eulogy, used voice recognition technology to create a moment in the audience’s mind that things they had said impacted the story they were involved in. We became very interested in creating a branch narrative storyline that offered many different endings, not something we did with Eulogy. Our usual special effects are general in that they affect everyone in the experience, but for each audience member to have their own journey meant we needed to create a design that allowed these effects to be individual. 

5. What are the challenges of developing a work like this?

This kind of branch narrative storyline soon grows exponentially and we had to find imaginative ways to keep this in check whilst making the story seem different if you decided to do it a second or third time. The other main challenge in terms of the narrative was to make sure that all the stories ended at the same time. Beyond that, the technical challenges you can begin to imagine. The show has 100,000 cues which is unprecedented and forced us to think about the platforms we used to deliver the content. 

6. ARCADE sounds like great fun, what is a specific part of it that audiences will really enjoy (that you can tell us about without spoiling it!)

We hope that everyone enjoys the experience of making decisions that are then acted out in the show in real time by the audience member’s avatar. We’re very excited by the idea that the audience is aware of this very large ‘world’ and that had they made different choices their story would have turned out very differently. We’re excited by the conversations that might come out of this.  

7. If you could create an immersive audio experience you haven’t yet, what would you love to try out?

We have a show we want to make that exists outside of a container in a large room with low lighting. We have been working with a technology that can attach sounds to objects. A story that involves a mobile audience moving through a space creates constraints, but this is the sort of challenge that excites us.

8. If people haven’t seen or booked their opportunity to go yet, why should they check out ARCADE?  

The experience of doing Arcade is very different from any show we know of. There is a sense of being in the show that sort of engages other parts of your brain, that doesn't ask you to follow a story traditionally. We hope that the show also engages the audience in ideas around choice and free will. These feel like very relevant topics today. 

To find out further information about DARKFIELD and their production ARCADE, visit their website here.