You know that sense of dislocation you get when you return to a building you once knew well, only to discover that somebody has put up partitions, repositioned the doors, painted the walls a different colour and moved all the furniture around? Well, this intriguing if not entirely successful piece combines some of that feeling and throws in a dash of fantasy, in a performance-cum-game designed to be played by an audience split into two teams.
Anyone familiar with the Choose Your Own Adventures books that were popular in the 1980s will grasp how it operates very quickly.
Seth Kriebel and Zoe Bouras start by conjuring a place (in this instance, the front entrance of the arts centre), and then give us a series of options that take us on a merry dance around the building where rooms you thought you knew turn out to have unexpected or hidden features. Like characters in a fairytale, we have to work out how to fulfil tasks in order to get where we would like to go.
The premise is tantalising, and the way the piece bounces memory off imagination is fascinating. The show only exists in our minds; if we, the audience, fail to bring our imaginations to the enterprise, it collapses. I’d love to see this played with primary-school children, who I bet would bring a more fantastical element to bear and give the performers a much harder time.
In its current format, it’s not particularly satisfying. It pits two teams against each other but to no competitive purpose, and the set-up’s formality militates against working together. The lack of a satisfying narrative is frustrating (all quests need a purpose), and it’s obvious very early on that choice is illusory, not just well disguised. This shrieks potential, but the execution requires a rethink.
• At Battersea Arts Centre, London, until 24 October. Box office: 020-7223 2223.
