Guy van Egmond
Sometimes you come across a concept that’s so good, you’re simply grateful that someone thought of it. Shout-out to Binge Culture for deciding that Werewolf (or Mafia, for some) could work with 10 times the players and a sound and lighting budget. The resulting show is a great homage to the game, balancing comedy and thriller to produce a very entertaining theatre experience.
Werewolf centred around a rumour-fueled epidemic that was sweeping the country (no, not again!), forcing the country to isolate (ugh) for seven days in small, community containment units. Our unit was led by three wardens, who were supported by a selection of promoted audience members invited to sit on stage as timekeepers, equipment officers, attendance monitors, etc. But the floor was open to just about everyone, with a little card on each seat explaining your role in play. The game and the mystery began even before the show did. How those instructions would play out, and who your neighbour might turn out to be, would be revealed over the course of the show’s six nights.
Before I get to those nights, I’ll say a little about the days before. These scenes played like a reasonably typical interactive show. We met our wardens, who had the same names as their actors (Stella Reid, Hannah Kelly, Joel Baxendale) just like in a round of the game; nice touch. A lot of these scenes were comedic, filled with dry puns and one-liners to put us at ease. The audience got their chances to join in too, such as the group up the back who had tin foil hats to wear and swore that all of this was caused by the 5G network. Amongst the quips and gags however, the seeds of tension and suspicion quickly began to show themselves. And then, it was night.
The show’s peak was during these periods of complete darkness, with eerie violin music cutting through any remaining sense of ease (Oliver Devlin). The score was also just loud enough to cover the sound of footsteps, should anyone choose to move around the stage. With nothing else to focus on—I couldn’t even see the people sitting in front of me—I found myself straining to hear if someone might be walking up the aisle next to me or moving around to scare us when the lights came back on. Little did I know, I was suspicious of the wrong people, but I‘m not going to say much more on that. On some nights, there was a grainy, infrared live-feed that watched the outside door of the containment unit. When this was on, I was rapt, squinting to try and catch any sign of movement. Suffice to say, as the stakes grew higher and the threat shifted from being ‘out there’ to ‘in here’, each night became longer and painfully longer.
When this tension did finally spring, at multiple points during the show, it was with exceptional timing. The lighting (Lucas Neal) would flash like lightning and the music would crescendo out of nowhere for jumpscares that drew screams from the audience. You never knew where and what to expect next, not even the people you came in with could be entirely trusted. Acting out her straightforward instruction card when directed, my partner scared the shit out of me and our neighbours at one point.
But this timing and set-up wasn’t just for the thriller part of the show. Some audience members’ instructions had cues or certain information, which set up new conversations and scenes for the three wardens. Their performances were incredibly flexible and responsive, to both work with the unpredictabilities of the audience and build on it. They ran with interruptions, played the audience against one another, and managed to deliver one-liners to things that couldn’t possibly have been scripted.
There were definitely points where the show got a little away from them. The audience was so well set up to deliver what the actors needed, that sometimes it seemed like the cast were just responding to what anyone was saying. As we got more comfortable, people started offering their own suggestions or trying out their own one-liners. Sometimes these were great, I’ll admit, but a lot of the time they were just noise that distracted both actors and audience alike. A similar thing also happened when certain gimmicks were introduced to the story; items that would otherwise help solve the werewolf hunt in a very logical and narratively-boring way. Of course, if we put everyone in a containment box, one by one, night after night, eventually we’ll eliminate who the infected are. That’s not how the show went, of course, but there wasn’t a clear reason as to why not. Anyone who called this suggestion out was ignored. While it was quite a tight show technically, narratively there were a few holes (and that’s before I mention the romantic subplot that got crowbarred in halfway through).
But I think judging Werewolf by the narrative metrics of a theatre show is unfair. It ignores the fact that, during the final night, I was perched on the edge of my seat, my leg bouncing in suspense, my fist clenched around my pen, so tightly-wound that, had someone appeared beside me--werewolf or otherwise--I maybe would have punched them. Probably not. I think. It’s one hell of a theatrical experience, almost like a giant escape room. Except, what escape room is going to have you questioning who your friends really are, and whether you can really trust the person sitting beside you?