Joyce Powell in a scene from The Spectators Oddessy.Handout
- Title: The Spectators’ Odyssey - o dell’Inferno
- Created, written and directed by: Daniele Bartolini
- Company: DopoLavoro Teatrale
- Venue: St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts and environs
- City: Toronto
- Year: To November 14, 2021
The Spectators’ Odyssey - o dell’Inferno is a new immersive show by DopoLavoro Teatrale (DLT for short) that aims for the epic – and misses in epic fashion.
This Florence-born, Toronto-based, Italian-Canadian theatre company has made a name for itself in recent years with promenade, interactive performances branded as “audience specific” work.
I’ve found what I’ve seen from DLT in the past fun if Fringe-y, so I was curious to see how its lead writer, director and creator Daniele Bartolini would expand on his vision with the backing of two major arts institutions.
TO Live, Toronto’s civic theatre organization, supported and is now presenting The Spectators’ Odyssey - o dell’Inferno; the show also received $175,000 from the National Arts Centre’s National Creation Fund.
Ticket-buyers have a choice of two immersive journeys to embark on, inspired, in part, by Homer’s The Odyssey and Dante’s Inferno: Go home or go to hell?
If you sign up for the Blue path, you and seven other spectators are led on a journey through the backstage and concrete underbelly of the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, a centennial-era theatre complex that the city is currently mulling over whether to renovate or replace.
Ticket-buyers have a choice of two immersive journeys to embark on, inspired, in part, by Homer’s The Odyssey and Dante’s Inferno.Marco Santambrogio/DopoLavoro Teatrale
If you sign up for the Red path, you and seven other spectators get taken on a little hike over to nearby St. Lawrence Market, which you enter after hours through the loading dock after being warned, as if at the gates of the underworld: “All hope abandon ye who enter here.”
Each of those paths cost $49 individually, but, should you want to experience both and get all your steps in for the day, you can sign for a doubleheader for $75.
A sign in the St. Lawrence Centre lobby, where spectators first assemble, warns that the show you’re about to see is fragmented.
That’s an understatement. Both shows are strings of mini-performances, some of which only ever really nod in passing to Homer or Dante, and some of which seem to have nothing to do with them.
The Blue path begins with a dancer/contortionist splitting spectators up and sending them to separate dressing rooms. There’s an old-fashioned cassette player to be found in each; press play and a kind of podcast/mix tape of short speeches featuring contemporized characters from The Odyssey can be heard.
A promising start, but then there’s more prerecorded performances in other places: a dance video to watch while standing in a rehearsal room, a monologue about theatre to listen to while sitting in a darkened green room.
Live performers do, thankfully, eventually appear – but they are young ones in desperate need of direction. Some are all intensity, others hard to hear even though in close proximity. The material they have to perform, mind you, is too insubstantial to possibly make an impact.
In a press release for The Spectators’ Odyssey - o dell’Inferno, Bartolini is quoted as saying that the show has been “perfectly conceived” to “meet the challenges of live performance during a pandemic.” I kind of felt the opposite on the Blue path: I didn’t really expect to find myself so often in small, badly ventilated rooms – especially not with performers singing at me.
The Red path is airier, which is the best I can say for it. Most of its running time is taken up walking over to the St. Lawrence Market behind a guide who keeps tediously banging on doors and soundlessly mouthing things – or wandering around after a clownish security guard who popped an extremely fast-acting MDMA pill.
The Spectators’ Odyssey - o dell’Inferno is a new immersive show by DopoLavoro Teatrale.Marco Santambrogio/DopoLavoro Teatrale
Some performances on this path are in languages other than English. At one point, an intense actor recites some Dante in Italian (according to one of the fellow travellers who speaks the language); at another, a clown speaks in French about Antonin Artaud and then has a conversation with an anthropomorphic poo.
What does this all add up to? It just feels like a succession of gimmickry: a brief experience viewed through VR goggles, choose-your-own-adventure options, audience participation … Throw enough stuff at the wall and something will eventually stick. An impressive live musical performance at the end of the Blue path demonstrated some much-needed real-time virtuosity.
There’s no program so it’s hard to know who to credit for what exactly. Dozens of artists are involved, including veteran filmmaker Bruce McDonald (Pontypool), on-the-rise playwright Luke Reece (who I think wrote one of the most enjoyable scenes, one that was actually poetic anyway) and established choreographer Esie Mensah.
On one level, it’s hard not to enjoy an immersive show: You walk around, you get to see the city from a different angle. But this show by Bartolini – who is listed at the top of the credits as creator, writer and director – felt like the form jumping the shark.
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In the interest of consistency across all critics’ reviews, The Globe has eliminated its star-rating system in film and theatre to align with coverage of music, books, visual arts and dance. Instead, works of excellence will be noted with a critic’s pick designation across all coverage. (Television reviews, typically based on an incomplete season, are exempt.)
J. Kelly Nestruck