"Every possible aspect of what the audience may experience must be thought through." Kirsten Siddle dishes on 'Love Lust Lost'.
Meanjin is home to a thriving immersive theatre scene, with companies such as Brisbane Immersive Ensemble, The Drawer Productions, Here + There Productions and Spacefold Technologies producing new and innovative works that play with and destroy the traditional conventions of theatre and the barrier between audience and the world of the show. Our immersive theatre scene is creating works that invite the audience to take part, to play a role in how the show unfolds and to give them unique and very personal experiences. For many, this is the future of live performance, and a Meanjin-based company, Broad Encounters is at the forefront of this growing genre and is one of the leading immersive theatre companies in Australia
Broad Encounters is led by Creative Director Kirsten Siddle. Their Meanjin orgins came from her desire to create works outside of traditional and conventional spaces, formats and methods and that transport their audience into other worlds. For the most part they don’t use traditional theatres or music halls, but do take over unique spaces and turn them into 360 degree multi-sensory sets for immersive performance that give the audience greater agency over the experience. Their creations work across music, sound design, theatre, dance, circus, scent, taste, puzzles and visual design, all mixed with a whole load of fun.
Their last show, A Midnight Visit was the first large-scale immersive theatre work to be created and staged in Australia, and had an epic four year run around Australia that has been seen by over 67,000 people, with many returning to it again and again. It culminated in an epic six month run in Meanjin in 2021, which not only made it the longest staged theatre productions to hit our town, but also kept the core cast and crew employed through an incredibly challenging time for artists and arts workers.
The local success of A Midnight Visit and the hometown origins of the company made Meanjin the perfect place to debut their latest work, Love Lust Lost. Kirsten has taken on the roles of Creator, Creative Director and Co-writer for Broad Encounters’ latest work, so NEHIB wanted to to hear from her directly about what has gone into creating this immense new world and what audiences should expect from a journey to the E.V. Nautilus in Love Lust Lost.
Image: David Kelley. Cover image: Jade Ellis
Tell us about ‘Love Lust Lost’ in 100 words or less
Love Lust Lost is an explosion of creativity, storytelling, immersion and adventure. Fun-fuelled, multi-tonal, multi-sensory and with a healthy amount of irreverence, Love Lust Lost is truly epic theatre-making for audiences with adventurous souls and contemporary tastes.
Blending music and theatre, soundscapes and song, spoken word and dance, circus and film, scents and taste, Love Lust Lost is an unforgettable foray into imagination and desire. Travellers will embark on a strange craft helmed by Captain Anderson, and as they journey through the intricate underworld they discover a tale of terrible sacrifice, sweet surrender, lost souls and other-worldly fun. It is spread over 38 rooms, but you don’t see them all in one visit!
How did your idea for ‘Love, Lust, Lost’ come about? What has been the inspiration for this show and what has been like to develop and prepare this work?
We’d always talked about creating a performance experience inspired by Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It’s such an epic adventure story that is as engaging today as it was when it was written. I was also fascinated by the ideas and questions posed by H C Anderson’s The Little Mermaid. When we were asked to create a new work to premiere in Brisbane, the city’s location and aesthetic gave us a natural connection to a watery underworld and the merging and integration of ideas began.
The work has been in creative development for almost three years, so we’re pretty thrilled that it’s finally premiered. Creating immersive theatre is challenging! There is an infinite amount of detail involved, everything must be layered and layered over each other and absolutely every possible touchpoint and aspect of what the audience may (or may not) experience must be thought through, carefully curated and dramaturgically analysed. There’s a team of more than 100 superstars behind this show, so there’s a lot of moving parts, but the team is a true powerhouse and every problem is tackled with creativity, flair and determination.
You’ve mentioned that the audience is an integral part of the show. What can punters expect from this show? How is it different from a typical theatre production?
The tough thing about a work of this nature is that you can prepare and prepare, but when an audience gets into the word there will still be many aspects to adjust and refine. This is because the audience are players in our world and have agency over their own involvement. In Love Lust Lost the audience take on the roles of either additional crew or researchers. The crew may be called on to assist with swabbing the decks or moving props around, while the researchers may be enlisted to investigate the research that our vessel’s Captain is undertaking into making it possible for humans to live under water.
Image: Jade Ellis
Either way, the audience are free to rifle through drawers, read charts and journals, crawl through hidden spaces and explore freely within the zones available to them. The world is like a giant film set that the audience can walk through and the more curious and thoughtful they are the more they will be rewarded by additional layers to the story.
I should also note that while the audience curate their own journey to a large extent, there is a choice early on between the left or the right path. Which one you choose will impact the scenes and rooms you visit. Moreover, from there you can also choose the rooms you visit within the zones. A room may be empty of performers at one time but five minutes later a key scene may be taking place. Personally my advice to audiences is to move slowly through the room and take up every opportunity to follow a performer into a scene.
Not everyone is comfortable fully immersing themselves in a production like this, for example having conversations with performers or rifling through drawers in a room. Would a punter be at a disadvantage if they didn’t want to fully immerse themselves in the experience?
It is completely possible to walk through this world as a voyeur and not participate or engage closely with the cast of characters. You will have a great time and you will not be forced into participating in anything. But I believe fortune favours the brave, so if you’re prepared to get involved, perhaps get a bit wet along the way, and engage and invest in a character’s story, then you’ll certainly be rewarded for it.
How is ‘Love, Lust, Lost’ different from your last show, ‘A Midnight Visit’? What did you learn from your seasons of A Midnight Visit that you’ve applied to ‘Love, Lust, Lost?
Unlike A Midnight Visit, in Love Lust Lost we’re creating an epic wonderland and performance where it is possible to discern a story, about what we might sacrifice or do for love and lust. It’s without doubt our most ambitious production to date and also our largest, physically.
Where A Midnight Visit was completely free-roaming, in Love Lust Lost you are asked to choose one of two paths early on. While both paths tell the same story they tell it through a slightly different lens and with different spaces and scenes accessible to you.
In Love Lust Lost we have built on the immersive practices we’ve developed through A Midnight Visit and other projects, but we’ve refined them and also become more ambitious in terms of the impact we want the experience to have on the story. We’ve also been able to amp up all of the production values across set design and build, sound, lighting, special effects.
What is the League de la Mer? Why should punters join? How will League members experience the show differently from regularly punters
League de la Mer is the membership program attached to the Brisbane season of Love Lust Lost. We were being asked by people how they could get involved further and support the company. This was being propelled by both a thirst for knowledge and insights into our immersive worlds and also from a philanthropic stand point - where people really just wanted to be able to support us to create new work.
Image: Jade Ellis
The League is a society that has access to insights into the making of the show (many of them attended dress rehearsals/preview before the season was open to the public), access to money-can’t-buy membership events, including behind the scenes creative discussions with cast and creatives, discounts on merchandise and drinks and also access to exclusive League-only merchandise. For example, our beautiful Love Lust Lost ‘hymn books’ as used in the show are available only to League members with an inscription from the cast. League members also receive a complementary pin and by wearing this to the show they may be invited by the cast to get involved in particular aspects of the show. The League also has access to a season pass for Love Lust Lost, which means that they can come to the show an unlimited number of times during the Brisbane season.
In developing The League we want to nurture a society that wishes to engage with the world of Love Lust Lost in a deeper way.
There’s a massive team involved in putting together a show like ‘Love, Lust, Lost’, tell us a little about some of the cast and team behind the scenes who have been involved in putting this together.
Yes the team is large! Scott Maidment is our Stage Director, which is a key role. His role differs from mine as Creative Director in that he is particularly focused on developing and honing the cast’s performative action. Scott has created and directed a roll call of hit shows in the past and his style is heavily influenced by physicality and circus as well as music. In Love Lust Lost he has crafted some truly epic moments, where the intimacy of immersive theatre collides with the spectacle of stage theatre.
One of these epic moments is our great and irreverent ‘fight’ scene, set in the ship’s grand Banquet Hall. In developing this scene Scott enlisted the specialisation of Nigel Poulton, who is a celebrated Fight and Intimacy Director across stage and screen. Nigel is an incredible teacher and his work with the cast will no doubt stay with them and help them through their entire careers.
Image: Jade Ellis
Helen Cassidy has also been a key contributor to this work through much of the creative development as well as in preparing for presentation. She has been writing and designing with Scott and myself with a focus on guiding the dramaturgical (narrative/story) components of the production and she has done this beautifully. Helen is an incredible actor, performer, director and curator and the full suite of her skills have been put to use on Love Lust Lost.
The format of ‘Love, Lust, Lost’ relies on punters truly engaging with the sets and performers to get the most out of the experience. There's a lot of potential ways that this can go each night. How have the cast and creative team prepared for this?
Helen Cassidy said something funny the other day on this. She said that she had no idea that creative theatre making could involve so many spreadsheets! Strange as it sounds, it’s true. Our show plot is a multi-layered spreadsheet and it maps out pretty much every element and touchpoint, showing all the intersections, permutations and combinations of what may arise or be needed in different scenarios.
Who is your perfect audience member? Who is going to LOVE this show?
Someone with a curious mind and a brave soul! Someone who is keen for an adventure and happy to go ‘where the wind takes them’ for a while.
Do you have any final hints or tips for our readers to get the most out of their experience? Is there anything else we simply MUST know about ‘Love, Lust, Lost’?
I think the best advice or hint is to approach Love Lust Lost without any firm expectations, other than you are about to be welcomed into a strange new world. It is best experienced when you take the pressure off yourself to try and see absolutely everything (hint: you just can’t in one, two or even six visits) and just let the underwater world envelope you. It’s an unpredictable and thrilling ride.
The world premiere season of Love Lust Lost runs until 21 August 2022 at The Valley Docklands, 95 Robertson Street The Valley.
Broad Encounters is also currently staging their much-loved Japanese magic bar experience, Maho Magic Bar, at the new Twilight Electric at Northshore, Hamilton until the end of September 2022. Maho Magic Bar is a pop-up venue, show and bar that is a homage to Japanese culture - contemporary and traditional. Inside the neon wonderland there’s a cocktail bar, and a cast of master magicians, direct from Japan, who conjure a glittering Tokyo night, full of magic acts, great drinks and lots of fun. Part show. Part bar. All magic!
