Reviewed by:

• The Under Presents: The Tempest by William Shakespeare
• Alicia Corts

While several companies have experimented with virtual reality (VR) performance, The Under Presents: The Tempest signals an intention to move VR theatrical productions from passive viewing of performances captured with the help of 360 cameras to productions with distinct attention to scenography, performance, and immersion. Devised by the game company Tender Claws and the performance group PieHole, The Under Presents premiered originally as a game where live actors occasionally insert themselves into the game play. Lauded as one of the most innovative interactive games for the Oculus Quest, a stand-alone VR headset, The Under Presents features a post-apocalyptic world for players to explore where live actors can interact with the players in a post-apocalyptic cabaret. After the start of the pandemic, the creative team involved with The Under Presents undertook a more traditional theatre piece by presenting an immersive version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. In the midst of myriad filmed and Zoom productions, this performance stands out not only for its commentary on the pandemic, but for the potential it demonstrates for an experience unfettered from the constraints of the physical world both in body and place through VR.

The Under Presents: The Tempest is not a strict production of Shakespeare’s work, but rather, in the spirit of Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More, the audience wanders through a series of virtual spaces that calls to mind the locations in The Tempest through the eyes of Prospero. With VR’s ability to shift locations with just the click of a button, audience members could interact with all these landscapes and each [End Page 236] other through their VR device while in their living rooms, and the rest of the audience and the guide could see and respond to their actions. Devised by the PieHole ensemble, each performance was led by a guide who slipped in and out of the role of Prospero, sometimes referring to himself or herself as an actor who had once played the role while at other times fully embracing Prospero’s persona. Through seven locations—an abandoned theatre lobby, a campfire at a house in the hills outside Los Angeles, the rough seas, a “mental palace” full of artifacts from the story, an open field, a demonic dinner table, and the ruins of a temple—the guide revealed the story of The Tempest through improvisations with the audience members, sometimes explicitly using the Shakespearean text and at other times using discussions of quarantines and cancelled productions to tell the tale.

The actor/guide interacts with the audience in the hills of Los Angeles. Brandon Bales (Actor/Guide) in The Under Presents: The Tempest. (Photo: Tender Claws.)

Within the VR space, the performance began in the Decameron Theatre, a dilapidated structure being swallowed by the surrounding desert and darkness. Its lobby looked as if the doors had been left open for some time, with drifts of sand accumulating around the room. Hidden in the sand, glass jars twinkled and beckoned, and once a user picked them up, they could look through them to see the hidden, parallel world of The Tempest. The lobby, bound by the edges of the desert, felt finite, yet the specific trick of the twinkling glass bottles, unavailable in the physical world, made the exploration seem infinite, rather like looking out of the window during quarantine. The glass bottles gave a greenish, monsterish glow to the images of costumes under glass from some forgotten production, sets growing through the floor of the lobby, and portals to the world of The Tempest. The laws normally governing a physical space suggested by the virtual Decameron Theatre no longer applied, and the walls did not represent confinement as much as the possibility of adventure in another world.

This exploration was done in isolation. While an audience member could see others in the lobby, there was little if any interaction among the participants. Each participant was...

审核人：

• The Under Presents: The Tempest by 威廉莎士比亚
• 艾丽西亚·科尔茨

虽然有几家公司已经尝试了虚拟现实 (VR) 表演，但The Under Presents: The Tempest表明有意将 VR 戏剧制作从被动观看借助 360 摄像机拍摄的表演转变为对场景、表演和表演特别关注的制作。浸没。由游戏公司 Tender Claws 和表演团体 PieHole 设计，The Under Presents最初是作为一种游戏首映，现场演员偶尔会插入自己的游戏。被誉为最具创新性的互动游戏之一 Oculus Quest，一款独立的 VR 耳机，The Under Presents拥有一个后世界末日世界，供玩家探索现场演员可以在后世界末日歌舞表演中与玩家互动的地方。大流行开始后，参与The Under Presents的创意团队通过呈现莎士比亚的《暴风雨》的沉浸式版本，进行了更传统的戏剧作品。在无数的拍摄和 Zoom 制作中，这场表演不仅因其对大流行的评论而引人注目，而且还因为它展示了通过 VR 体验不受身体和地点限制的物理世界的潜力。

The Under Presents: The Tempest并不是莎士比亚作品的严格制作，而是本着 Punchdrunk's Sleep No More的精神，观众漫步在一系列虚拟空间中，通过 Prospero 的眼睛让人想起The Tempest 中的地点. 借助 VR 只需单击按钮即可移动位置的能力，观众可以与所有这些景观以及每个景观进行互动[End Page 236]其他人在客厅里通过他们的 VR 设备，其他观众和向导可以看到他们的行为并做出反应。由 PieHole 乐团设计，每场表演都由一名导游带领，他时常扮演 Prospero 的角色，有时将自己称为曾经扮演过该角色的演员，而有时则完全拥抱 Prospero 的角色。通过七个地点——一个废弃的剧院大厅、洛杉矶郊外山上房子里的篝火、波涛汹涌的大海、一个装满故事中的文物的“精神宫殿”、一个空旷的田野、一张恶魔般的餐桌和废墟一座寺庙——导游讲述了暴风雨的故事 通过与观众的即兴创作，有时明确使用莎士比亚的文本，有时使用隔离和取消制作的讨论来讲述这个故事。

演员/导游在洛杉矶的山上与观众互动。Brandon Bales（演员/指南）在Under Presents: The Tempest 中。（照片：嫩爪。）

在虚拟现实空间内，表演从十日谈剧院开始，一个被周围沙漠和黑暗吞没的破旧结构。它的大厅看起来好像门已经打开了一段时间，房间周围堆积着沙子。隐藏在沙子中的玻璃罐闪烁着招手，一旦用户拿起它们，他们就可以透过它们看到隐藏的平行世界The Tempest. 被沙漠边缘包围的大厅感觉有限，但在现实世界中无法获得的闪烁玻璃瓶的特定技巧让探索看起来无限，就像在隔离期间看窗外。玻璃瓶为一些被遗忘的作品、在大厅地板上生长的场景以及通往暴风雨世界的门户的玻璃下的服装图像发出了绿色的、怪物般的光芒。虚拟十日谈剧院建议的通常管理物理空间的法律不再适用，而墙壁并没有像在另一个世界冒险的可能性那样代表禁闭。

这种探索是孤立进行的。虽然观众可以看到大厅里的其他人，但参与者之间几乎没有互动。每个参与者都...