Parasocial Parallax | AG Productions
All images including cover: Ben Rawson
Parasocial Parallax is a delightfully weird communal choose-your-own-adventure story in the genre of comedy-drama sci-fi. The show begins with social media influencer Mackenzie live streaming on Instagram. You can scan the QR code, join the real Instagram live, and send her comments and questions to interact with in real time. This is such a fun start to the show and actor Eliza Allen is utterly convincing as a vapid online star.
Mackenzie then takes center stage, and a phone is pointed towards her, capturing her image and projecting it on the front wall, so the audience at the same time saw her in front of them, and the video. This is a really effective set design (the video also captures some of the audience members, which is a little distracting to begin with, but they quickly fade into the background). Mackenzie is joined by her partner Jordan (Jade Clark) and father William (Wayne Bassett). It is revealed that Mackenzie is live-streaming about her Nueralink, a brand new technology that will allow audiences to connect with her like never before, which will be able to be purchased by the public within minutes.
Mackenzie’s personal life unfolds in front of us, with quite a bit of tension between her and Jordan over the new technology being tested on her brain. The show drops us straight into this moment, with the Narrator (Tahlia Downs) filling us in on their backstories, and guiding us through the voting process.
Seated at tables of four, each audience group is given a two sided object they can use to vote for different choices during the show. As the audience are seated in the round they can see each other's votes, and encourage people to change. While it would have been an obvious choice to continue with the QR codes and have people use their phones to vote, it felt much more communal to do this with a physical object and not anonymously, and it shows that you as the audience really are calling the shots on what happens next. This could feel gimmicky, but given the premise of the influencer being constantly watched and in many ways influenced themselves by their audience even before the Nueralink, it matches the show nicely.
Having the interaction set up this way also makes for a very low-pressure interactive environment. I have been to shows in the past where selecting certain audience members to interact a lot has created some awkwardness, but the Parasocial Parallax set-up allows people to interact with the work without the spotlight on them. This show is perfect for your friend who might be a little more on the shy side.
But how much of a difference do these choices make? You can find out, as without giving too much away, the crowd gets to make their choices again, with six possible endings for the audience to discover. I feel like the show I went to was lucky enough to experience quite an unhinged pathway that led to a really compelling and surprising ending, but it’s difficult to know if this sense of resolution is experienced by every audience. The first round of choices made by the group is going to strongly influence how the rest of the show and the characters are seen. I quite liked the character of Jordan and felt sorry for Mackenzie, but would I have felt differently if we had taken a different path? The only way to know would be to go back and make different choices, which I would happily do. Parasocial Parallax is playful, engaging, and full of surprises for those who think carefully about the choices they can make.
