The Triple Presence of Digital Acting

Wayfinding: Appendices > The Triple Presence of Digital Acting

When I interviewed Brendan Bradley, he discussed some acting theory with me regarding how he now tries to incorporate live 'meatspace' work with virtual worlds, including in his current production Non-Player Character: The Musical. Although I found his discussion really valuable, I wasn't able to find a specific place for it to live in the body of this thesis project, so I want to put it here for anyone coming up to make second wave digital theatre but who might be confused about some approaches to embodied acting and audience-performer engagement theory.

I think what emerged from doing it virtually was the idea of what is being very badly called “triple presence,” for lack of an actual word for it. So, when I’m performing, I am – no matter where I’m performing at, whether it's in a theatre, or virtually – I am in-person. Like I am a physical human in my meatspace. I’m having to bring all the traditional stagecraft of my technical instrument to perform, and to genuinely convey the character, the story, the emotions, the experience. That's the first presence that I have to maintain, and that would be true if I was on a film set with a camera right here [near the face]. That would be true if I was on a proscenium stage with a giant audience like that. That's a very familiar language to me, and kind of first bubble.

There's then this layer, because of the heavy participation that I think we're familiar with in the immersive space from a Burn City, or a Sleep No More, or work like that where it's like – then there's this audience awareness and presence in the virtual world that they are occupying. And I have to be very conscious of where they are in virtual space versus where I am in my own physical space, and communicating this kind of shared, alternate, imagined reality together, and treating it as if it's a “real reality,” letting the set actually be collide-able, and letting the, you know, letting the stakes of this imagined world be real for them, the audience, so that they feel consequence, and they feel choice. But there's then this very fun third presence, which is – they want to know it's [the event] live. They want to know it's responding to them, and it's that kind of meta-nature metaverse, but also meta in there's a self-referential-ness to it – it is puppetry, and they want to kind of be invited to see the actor perform the puppetry, and in, you know, traditional puppetry work. We'd have me, in all blacks, and you'd see only see me still on stage operating that mechanism. And I think that audiences really do enjoy knowing that's a live performer, and I’m getting to check in with what they are doing in their physical space to bring that puppet to life. I think that there is an enjoyment of watching that craft take place.

This is where I'm obsessed with this incredible new layer of doing this work in-person of doing a live-stage show in VR where the majority of the audience is seated and they're watching the VR world projected on the screen.