Culture

THEA152 Technology Class, (4.5/5).

The point of the “Voyager” assignments is to get the THEA152 students to work together and create a show displaying all of the skills they have learnt over the past semester. Sometimes these shows can be technological but dull. Sometimes they can be exciting but not very technological. Today’s show was both technological and exciting. These shows usually require some level of audience participation (which I intrinsically dread) and Voyager Seven was by no means an exception.
 
The premise of the show was that we, the audience, were beginning to watch a play about love, that is until some masked figures hi-jacked the show, taking the cast and crew hostage. We had to perform a series of tasks and answer a number of riddles to ensure all the hostages got to live à la the seven Saw movies.
 
This is where the audience participation came in, and yes, I did participate and my experience of the show was all the better for it (my heart was even racing at points). This is a Voyager I enjoyed more than most. The riddles were challenging yet (sometimes) achievable and although we lost a couple of hostages early on, we did manage to save some too.
 
The special effects were pretty good, I enjoyed the “electrocution” lights and I particularly enjoyed the use of live camera feeds. Unfortunately the acting was a little iffy but that is almost beside the point, and Tom Williams did make an adorable doting groom. It was great the way you could see the hostages upstairs suffocating and hear them yelling and banging above us at the same time. Everything seemed well thought out. Except the use of the “red door”, that was annoying.
 
Although the show did depend entirely on audience participation, the booming voiceover (or criminal mastermind) created an environment in which you couldn’t but participate. I’m glad I did participate and get involved. Top job kids. Really enjoyable.