The Confidence Man, however, challenges and in some ways subverts that classic approach to dramatic performance. Directed by Zoe Pepper, The Confidence Man has no regular actors as such: the six roles in the play are performed by ordinary audience members chosen before the show, with their actions and dialogue in the play are directed by an audio track that plays through headphones inside of the enormous masks each audience-performer dons at the beginning of the show. Audience members are provided with headphones, which can be tuned to different channels that convey the different characters’ inner thoughts.
“It’s an interactive audio work where the mechanics of the piece are as important as the plot line,” Pepper explains. “It’s performed by audience members who play out the action of the play within the floor plan of a house, which is marked-up on the floor of the stage. They hear a mixture of dialogue and instructions and inner monologue as a way for them to play the role and perform it for the audience, rather than watching from the outside.”
Pepper says the idea was to allow the audience to become immersed in the play, beyond thestandard observer audience role. “It was wanting to make a truly immersive experience for audience members,” Pepper says. “I’m hoping it’s a lot of fun for them, for them to get involved in the joy of the dress-ups, which is our regular job.”
Cultural and media observers cite the interactive aspect that pervades online entertainment as differentiating modern media from traditional, one-way media such as broadcasting. Pepper, however, sees the interactive aspect of The Confidence Man in slightly more nuanced terms. “I think it’s interactive in the sense that you’re playing the part, but you do surrender a lot of your autonomy and follow instructions, which seems to allow people to surrender their inhibitions and not really care about the fact that other people are watching them.”
The plot of The Confidence Man builds on the tried and true genre of the thriller, married with a family drama that unfolds before the audience’s eyes, and ears. “It’s a crime thriller. It’s a family drama that meets crime thriller – there’s a family, and an old family member who’s come to stay, and on the way to visiting them he finds a big bag of cash at the park, which brings untold catastrophe to the family, and to him,” says Pepper. “So we see that play out over the course of the play. We chose a thriller, because it’s a well-known genre, that’s action-driven and people understand the mechanics of. So in terms of knowing where you fit in, in the world it’s quite clear for audience members who are playing the part.”
Pepper says the play explores the notion of suspense that’s intrinsic to the thriller genre by allowing the audience greater insight into the characters motivations. “The degree of suspense comes from the fact that the audience members who watch have the upper hand in terms of understanding the story, because they have the ability to change channels to listen to the audio of the different characters,” says Pepper. “So [the audience] can see what’s going to happen much clearer than the members of the audience who’re on stage, who are in a bubble to some extent. So I think there’s a degree of suspense in seeing story threads play out and watching them come together.”
While the plot has now solidified into its current form, the original idea was even more radical. “The original idea was to have a funeral set on a suburban oval, with the 24 characters of the Guess Who game board in attendance,” Pepper says. “We shifted that a long way since then, which is a lot to do with getting a better understanding of what people want to do when they’re in the masks, and how people want to participate, and what gives them the most enjoyable experience, as well as understanding the immensity of the project, and how many characters is an achievable number.”
Pepper says there will be an element of self-selection in choosing which audience members will perform each night. “If you arrive early, and you’re willing, then we’ll put a mask on you and you’ll become a character,” she says. While the plot and audio soundtrack is the same each night, Pepper says the allure of the concept is seeing how different audience members react to the same instructions. “It’s unique in the playing, but the mechanics of the plot will remain the same each time the show is performed, because it’s a pre-recorded audio track. We’re hoping we haven’t got too many rogue performers who want to mess with the story too much – but it will be essentially the same plotline each time,” she says.
And while there is necessarily an element of risk when you’re directly involving members of the audience, Pepper sees that as a chaotic factor that will only contribute to the excitement of each performance. “Oh, yes, plenty of things can go wrong. But I guess that’s the risk they’re running. But also seeing how different audience members deal with particular situations, and how they carry out instructions that can be carried out in a thousand different ways, is part of the joy of the project. And seeing what’s unique in special about each performance and each set of audience members who are essentially the cast.”
BY PATRICK EMERY
