How does a person identify what part of them, what set of perceptions, is really who they are? What forms of sensory input can be trusted? Of all the senses, sight is usually the one that theatre goers, or viewers, as they are often called for this very reason, feel most connected to. In DARKFIELD’s Coma, however, sight is taken away as the audience becomes immersed in the cold, isolated world of the subject— in which the audience is the subject.
In a show in which dream and reality become disorienting and blurred together, each audience member begins their individual journey with their own provided bunk and set of headphones before leaving the life they thought was theirs— the so-called ‘real world’— far behind (at least for the half hour that the show occupies). The show takes place in a shipping container, the third of its kind following two previous shows by the same company, and asks that each person lie down in a soon-to-be darkened room.
The experience is one that each member of the audience must take alone. It is a risk, an act of trust, and in becoming a participant (as every audience member is both audience, participant, and subject of the show) one must lay aside what it means to attend a piece of theatre. There is no forth wall— in fact, once the room goes dark there are no walls at all.
Coma is a fascinating experiment in theatrical form that draws audiences in with the spectacle and modern appeal of sensory deprivation and keeps them coming back with questions about what it means to have a lived human experience and be truly alive.