For this project, I teamed up with local sleight-of-hand artist Stuart Lightbody to create a show that ventured far beyond the realm of traditional theatre. The audience was invited to spend an evening inside Stuart's mind, a locked room full of fading memories where beautiful impossibilities lurk. On entering the theatre each audience member was given an antique key. The show was designed to unfold differently each time based on choices made by the audience members in the theatre, this unusual format guaranteed a unique live experience each evening.
As the show drew to a close it was revealed that their key opened a mysterious box hidden somewhere in the outside world. If they wished to dive deeper, they could follow the clues set out for them in the downstairs bar and the mystery would slowly be revealed. Audience members followed a series of clues hidden in paper folders, on business cards, fictional show posters and white origami rabbits, eventually using the antique rotary-style telephones in Alexander Bar to call a "psychozoologist" named Mirum Vivit. After further email correspondance with the worthy adventurers, she revealed the location of the locked box.
The locked box was hidden at several different locations around Cape Town over the course of the theatre run, from restaurants, to tea houses, to art galleries, to the basement of a bookshop. Inside the box, adventurers found an invite to the induction ceremony of the 'Circle of 8', a secret society dedicated to spreading wonder in the world.
The adventure culminated with a gathering at a mysterious old Victorian building with a long standing relationship with the art of magic. Here the new members of the society witnessed impossible wonders, drank blue octopus blood and took an oath to forever keep the wonder alive. The project landed us on the front page of the Cape Times Art section with rave reviews from the public and media alike.
