At the McKittrick Hotel where Sleep No More has been ensconced for years, additional performance pieces are staged. Last year there was a very entertaining barroom musical from the National Theater of Scotland called The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart. Vox Motus, another Scottish company, created Flight whose ticket states that this is “a new form of theater.” From their website: “Ours is a theatre of story-telling visuals, transformational design, magic, comedy, music, physical performance, puppetry, multi-media and most importantly thrills.” Performances for Flight take about an hour to experience and are scheduled in 45 minute increments. Most importantly, is that enough time for thrills?
The answer is yes. Flight is based on the book Hinterland by Caroline Brothers. It tells the story of two orphaned children fleeing Afghanistan on foot to a better life. The goal is London. Ms. Brothers was a journalist and while her novel is fiction, all of the events portrayed are based on interviews. As you might imagine, the journey is difficult and sometimes harrowing while often moving and hopeful. Told in a documentary style, this tale brings you in to face the human drama underneath the politicized news cycle of these struggling people.
And face it you do, alone. One at a time you are brought into this experience. You are seated in a chair separated from others by dividers and instructed to put headphones on. What follows is a sort of large cyclindrical diorama which tells the story of Flight in miniature. Small sections light up as the story progresses past your eyes, just for you at that moment, before moving to the next person. The experience is quite unsettling (as intended) but beautifully rendered. Dialogue, sound effects, dramatic visuals and lighting are well executed in support of the material.
Flight humanizes the horrific plight of refugees through an intimate story of two boys. It also puts a mirror to humanity’s intolerance as we watch the bravery and determination of these children. The unique and creative design used to tell this story elicited strong emotional reactions from me, including anger and despair. All from a fantastic cyclindrical diorama and a pair of headphones. Maybe the moniker “a new form of theater” is debatable but there’s no denying that Flight contains “thrills.” The raft scenes alone are worth a visit.
One Reply to “Flight”