KNOT by Darkfield Radio, 23 June 2021 ****

 

AUDIO THEATRE

Darkfield Radio KNOT, 'Immersive 360 Audio'

Streamed on your phone. Fri- Sun at 5pm, 6pm & 7pm (All of these times) until 31 July 2021

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: **** (4)

KNOT, another in a series of immersive, audio performances by Darkfield Radio, is an evocative and unsettling dreamscape.

 

This is a solo listening experience in three parts. The audience listens to the performance through earphones on their mobiles. We experience Part One on a park bench of our choosing, Part Two in a car alone, and Part Three back in our own home. With eyes closed, the world is populated by a parade of characters, and filled with soundscape that evoke each location.

 

KNOT relies on the audience, as active listeners, being willing to be transported to other places and times and willing to believe in this new reality. We are not merely audience, but each of us is an intrinsic character in this narrative – silent, but still present and significant.

 

Seated on the park bench, we hear a woman who has no memory, no identity and does not know why she is in the park. A boy plays with a ball, two tourists chat to her, a car skids to a halt.

 

In the car two men, one American, one English, bicker about driving, safety, about ‘The Box’ that they think is in the boot and whether they are going to the park or to ‘The Meeting’. The dreamlike quality continues in Part Two as the men wonder what is real, what is memory and what is hypothetical. They muse about the woman’s voice on their car radio offering them ‘liberation from regret’.

 

In the final scene, back at our homes with eyes closed, we join the characters at ‘The Meeting’. The room is filled with people all clinking teaspoons, wondering what is in ‘The Box’ and even where it is. They are trying to change the outcome of an incident by forgetting everything and starting once again from the beginning – over and over and over again.

 

KNOT is an enigmatic and slightly disturbing experience, that merges reality and dream, memory and truth. The world is vivid, bustling with activity, voices, sounds and characters. We, like the other characters, have trouble grasping what is truth and hoping that we can go back to the start again so we can understand the entire story and change the ending.

 

by Kate Herbert