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In the Dreamhouse project, Ship of Fools was seeking to bring the primitive
theatre's immediacy up to date , combining spatial, ritualistic, and dreamlike
elements. As in many other ‘games’ the user finds themselves
in a house. A walk through the Dream house offered access to a number
of rooms or experiences; each designed by an artist, reworking traditional
storytelling structures. Various rooms were appropriately matched to the
different psyches of those involved in authoring the piece. So the house
became an interactive theatre, where different tales are triggered by
audience exploration. The bland domestic environment of a real suburban
house (in fact a real Barrett’s ‘Show Home’ in a suburban
estate at Bradley Stoke, the negative equity capital of the U.K.) became
the main interface.
In Rieser's own contribution, Labyrinth, various devices-doors, windows,
mirrors and other objects, opened gateways into the mythological world.
The themes of intimacy and alienation were explored through such devices
as multiple talking heads, each with their particular poetic fragments,
or through a hall of sleepers who could be individually awakened. I sought
to employ the resonance of poetic verse drama to unpack a number of thematics
around fatherhood, overwhelming passion and ‘Real Politik’ suggested
by the original Theseus and Daedalus legends. The transition in Greece
from the worship of the Goddess to Apollonian religion is explored in
the myth, where the Frankenstein-like quest for knowledge has equally
dire consequences for the inventor. Daedalus commits murder, loses a son,
and creates the monstrous Minotaur through his overweening pride in science.
The piece explores these themes through dramatised video and a verse structure,
which utilised parallel monologues (or duologues), set in dialectic opposition
for each linked pair of protagonists. The verse is constructed so that
cross-counterpoints occur with every phrase. The verse reads vertically
for the individual speaker and horizontally for each pairing. The freedom
to switch video streams at any time allowed the audience to reconstruct
meaning somewhere between the two opposing narrations. The development
of irony and pathos demanded that no single monologue is privileged. Writing
for such an interface involved a new and precise multi-lineal approach
to scripting:
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Labyrinth
Cast
Dionysis Alan Coveney
The Sybil Susan Dowdall
Theseus David Forester
Talus John Gregor
Pasiphae Kim Hicks
Daedalus Andrew Hilton
Icarus Patrick Marlowe
Minos Alan Moore
Ariadne Amanda Villamayor
Aegeus Bob Waller
Minotaur Bob Willingham
Crew
Costume Design Sam Pine
Camera Jon Dovey
Sound Bob Prince
Lighting Bob Prince
Digital editor Mark Howard
Casting and Direction Bonnie Hurren
Script Martin Rieser
Art Direction Martin Rieser
Design and Production Martin Rieser
Special Thanks to Show of Strength Theatre Company, The
University of the West of England, DA2 , F-Stop Media Station and Ship
of Fools for their sponsorship and support
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Labyrinth
