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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Theatre review: Landline is like chat roulette for theatre people

Have you ever spilled your secrets to a stranger? Boca Del Lupo’s latest piece of micro theatre explores moments of fleeting human connection in Landline: Vancouver to Kitchener.

In a creaky room above a parking garage on Granville Island Boca Del Lupo has succeeded in creating a theatrical experience like no other.  With little more than a headset and the phone number of a stranger, you set out to ramble around the city guided only by the whispering voice on a recording.

“Choose a place that reminds you of someone”, it asks. You do so, and then text this information to your “scene partner” in Kitchener, Ontario. In Landline, you connect with a stranger through your shared experience of experiencing the familiar in an unfamiliar way.

The experience of Landline is intriguing. At times, the recording is a useful tool to provoke a conversation and connection between you and your scene partner. But by the end, the static nature of the recording was a hindrance to the more organic exchange happening through the phone. The directions are a good mix of casual and intimate without getting too uncomfortable, yet occasionally bleeds into “big-picture” questions that seem at odds with the very real exchange happening between strangers. Perhaps that is the point.

Landline relies on how game the participants are. If your partner in Kitchener doesn’t want to share, it’s little more than a pensive walk around Granville Island. But with the right partner, it becomes a shared exploration on the nature of connection in a technological world.

With the news filled with a fear of strangers, Landline: Vancouver to Kitchener is a humble plea to trust and connect. It’s like chat roulette for theatre people.

Landline: Vancouver to Kitchener. Produced by Secret Theatre (Halifax) and presented in Kitchener by Impact Festival in association with Boca del Lupo. Visit https://bocadellupo.com for more information. No further performances.

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