Since the Hannah Playhouse became a flexible performance space again, I have been eager to experience a show there that makes the most of it – and Binge Culture’s Disaster delivers.

It reminds me of the BATS STAB seasons we used to get at this time of year, before the time of Covid. Directed by Joel Baxendale, it’s vintage Binge Culture in concept, albeit imported and adapted for NZ (Dramaturgy by Ralph Upton) from Berlin’s machina eX, who premiered it in 2018.

“A theatre game about game theatre,” the promotion material tells us. “Delusions of grandeur, anguish, and an invisible rat all play a part in this fully-participatory performance.”

Only 12 audience members attend each … well, not sitting, because we are on our feet and moving about throughout, except for the penultimate ‘round table’ interlude. We explore, discover and, most importantly, solve problems as a slowly bonding team. Audience participation works best when something ‘real’ is at stake, and so it is with Disaster. Without our input, the ‘story’ cannot progress.

The Production Designer, Meg Rollandi, has gutted the auditorium and created an evocative series of discrete spaces through which we travel as the central story – and the unresolved story of its making – evolve. Tom Smith’s lighting and Oliver Devlin’s sound design ensure each space is dynamic. Devlin is also credited with Technical Recreation and Operation, and Technical Operation: a task that is more interactive than usual.

Our first encounter with Hugo Hovel (Arlo Gibson) is a time-sensitive life-and-death situation in a dark and dingy storeroom. To save him, we need to find the crucial clues amid a clutter of books, boxes, files and vials on metal shelves, a cluster of cuttings on a notice board … A modern computer keyboard and a retro continuous stationary printer, colour-coded electrical cords and a mysterious double-helix may or may not help … A spooky voice from the ether (Karin McCracken) may or may not be on our side. Only by bringing light to the darkness will we foil a dastardly plan for world domination.

Mission accomplished, we find ourselves in the brightly coloured bedroom of 8 year-old Hugo – a science enthusiast. He needs help with an experiment and seeks help from Paula the invisible rat. Despite being able to help him, we are also invisible to Hugo.

Here’s where matters get meta, with Karen intervening in a directorial role to circumvent a long monologue and deal with Arlo’s ‘actor processing’ issues by adopting the role of Hugo’s father. The game being played here is that the production itself is a disaster, but of course this flip to the underside adds a new dimension of entertainment.

Karen/Dad’s response to young Hugo’s claim that he’s tided his things away, recurs more than once and gives us pause for thought: “Away just means somewhere else. Nothing really goes away.”

A leap over 25 years finds Hugo wracked with anxiety over the fate of his secret discovery, and the problem to solve here is whether it’s paranoia in the wake of endless harassment or a real and present danger. Are the “delusions of grandeur” Hugo’s or those seeking world domination by whatever means necessary? We take to the round table and work in pairs to respond to phoned-in messages and instructions …

And ancient Hugo’s final journey is to a forest where we help to liberate Paula the invisible rat. And here’s where I see more disasters looming: the forest is pine trees – wilding pines? – and surely Paula will be a predator! The story may be finished but nothing really comes to an end.

The Green Room notice board offers insights into the provenance of Disaster, suggesting a dysfunctional process that may or may not be an allegory for … whatever we choose it to be. Have we experienced something profound or is it just a game? Either way it’s absorbing.

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