Extended! If you haven’t been to Darkfield’s multi-sensory experience, you have until Sunday

Posted on 15 April, 2024

Darkfield brings its audience along on a multi-sensory journey into the unknown – but be warned, it won’t be for everyone.

Landing at Canberra Theatre Centre until Sunday 21 April, Darkfield takes place in a series of shipping containers in Civic Square, with each container hosting a unique experiential journey not for the faint-hearted (read: me). Each experience will last 25 minutes with the option to experience just one show or book both shows – Séance and Flight – in a row.

Created by Glen Neath and David Rosenberg, who helped pioneer some of the UK’s first ‘immersive theatre’, the duo’s previous projects Ring (2013) and Fiction (2015) had sold-out runs in London. The immersion in question comes from a rather mind-bending pair of sets, created inside individual shipping containers.

In Séance (pictured above), guests sit facing each other on velvet chairs over a long, dimly lit dinner table while in Flight, guests sit in (you guessed it) rows of airplane seats that look more real than your last Jetstar flight. Once guests are seated, they are encouraged to put on their headphones – and then they are plunged into darkness.

Darkfield Producer Amy Johnson explains that this darkness sharpens all your other senses which, paired with an epic binaural, 360-degree audio in your headphones, quickly transports you into the scene – into the theatre of it all.

“Taking away your vision does something different with your brain…you can explore a bit of what your brain instinctively thinks and does based on other stimuli,” she explains.

While Amy doesn’t want to spoil the experience – after all, the shows are only 25 minutes each – she will reveal that Séance and Flight may just peek inside your subconscious.

“Often, Darkfield is playing into people’s anxieties and that’s something so interesting for the creators to explore.”

This sentence becomes even weightier when Amy reveals that David Rosenberg’s day job is actually as an anaesthetist.

“David flies around the world a lot for work, so having the setting of a plane is really fascinating for him,” says Amy, explaining that the duo often taken inspiration from the world around them and work outwards, creating a piece of theatre from a single thought – theatre that seems to floor audiences in cities across the world.

“Everyone has such a different reaction to Darkfield…it’s always great watching people come out of the experience. For the first few moments they’re processing, then everyone starts talking with their friends about what they experienced.”

But will it be properly scary for wimps like me?

While our Founder Amanda Whitley almost jumped out of her horror-movie-loving skin with excitement at Darkfield’s announcement, I was less enthused. Luckily, Amy softens my fears, assuring me that the theatre of the experience is from the setting and the audio in your headphones alone.

“Scary is subjective,” she explains. “You might be scared of clowns, for example, and others are indifferent, so I think it’s really important to not go in there worried and anxious about a terrifying experience.”

“No one is going to grab you – this isn’t a haunted house. It’s not scary for some people, it’s more an exploration of what causes our anxieties and there’s no need to be scared for your own safety.”

With that in mind, it might also be worth noting that Darkfield’s website states that it is not suitable for people who are pregnant, suffering from back or heart conditions and ‘if you are claustrophobic, suffer from PTSD, or could be triggered by flight related themes, this may not be the show for you’.

So…two tickets for the séance, Canberra?

Feature image credit: Mihaela Bodlovic.