Fracturing the walls of traditional theatre practice FoulPlay summon audiences to douse their senses in the visceral histrionics of our folly. The force of haughty imagination, meticulous invention and a cultivated company aesthetic create elegant collisions of modern myth, genre and metaphysics, placing the audience at the epicentre of the transcendent spectacle that is a ‘FoulPlay’ production.
FoulPlay Productions promote the use of non theatrical spaces, and purposefully unpick and remove commonly accepted theatrical conventions, specifically those associated with audience arrangement, participation and mobility. From the moment the audience arrive at the venue the theatrical experience of a FoulPlay performance begins. Ticketing, box office and promotions occur ‘in character’ as an unexpected first movement of the show, immediately inducting our unwitting audience into the world of the story.
Audiences are invited into the belly of the performance, they are free to engage as they please with the performers, and are significantly free to feel their way through the experience of the play. FoulPlay shows move around the audience, whilst the audience themselves are physically moved, presenting numerous layers of contrasting frames of engagement enveloped within a fixed narrative. The space becomes an arena that is shared by both performer and participant, uniting both parties. Live sounds, smells and feelings eulogise the action and imagery, encouraging the beholder to indulge all sentiment with passion and playful abandon throughout the spectacle. FoulPlay endeavour to titillate all five senses whilst creating the illusion of a free flowing and changeable series of events.
From the devising of a show, to its final manifestation, a strong sense of aesthetic allows FoulPlay to combine the requirements of contextual setting with practical performance to create a complete and internally coherent, visual and material package of metaphorical and literal scenarios. Artefacts form an integral part of the spectacle, serving as theatrical properties and company propaganda. Items include tools for inspection and appliance, which may promise, mislead or reveal further narrative insight for our congregation, for whom the complete visceral experience is an immediate concern.
Experience is created through the immersion of private episode with public observation. Participation requires no explicit demand for co-operation, FoulPlay merely establish a parameter for play within a process led event. This form of play allows audiences to make decisions that affect narrative twists and outcomes. FoulPlay pay careful attention to essential stage-plotting and choreography to ensure the greatest and often most subtle fluency in performance, granting the audience the broadest scope for freedom of participation within unconventional and multi-location venues.
Scrupulously conceived narratives weave together allegory and symbolism with the honesty of a good yarn within an intimate and immediate performance experience.
reward participation
communication
intraction
encourage community
use of space
outdoor
urban
indoor
audience
subvert traditional specifications
FOUL
the chicken, the egg, the should, the courage, the cock, the rubber chicken,
PLAY