🥸Puppetry or Full Presence?

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Virtual spaces can simulate some of the experience of physical proximity in ‘’, so it is entirely possible to recreate a theatrical performance from choosing a theatre space with a stage, like a black box or a proscenium, and performing as a human avatar in a costume.

Figure 10: Screenshot from an OnBoardXR 6 rehearsal with the evening's crew, performers, and audience seen in a Discord channel on the right, and the virtual stage for Andy North's comedy show in Hubs seen on the left, with an orange life jacketed avatar of a performer/test audience member visible.

However, this is not the culture of virtual reality’s social spaces, and VR platforms allow even more flexibility with design choices and audience engagement than even the most immersive of experiences like MeowWolf or Punchdrunk Theatre. In an article on the National Theatre’s theatrical production research in virtual reality, , said he believed there was ‘a natural alignment between’ traditional theatrical practices and virtual reality: ‘The whole creative team working in theater is used to working in a 360 environment. In the theater, every audience member has their own unique view and everyone working in it knows that and has to create accordingly’. in another VR theatre article that ‘virtual reality “world building” requires similar skills to theatre-making’. While hands-on fabrication skills related to physical items within the theatre do not directly translate into virtual worlds, theatrical design concepts relating to lighting, soundscapes, sets, props, costumes, and even acting theory shift into VR easily.

Since performing in virtual reality is a new experience, it is important to allow the performers to have enough time with their technology to learn how to embody their roles in the virtual world. in his article on XR theatre: ‘physicality and expression can be a trade-off. A character may be fantastically designed for VR, but controlling and expressing through it isn’t always easy – even with special avatars with controller-activated expressions’. Manipulating an avatar in a virtual world has some ties to videogame play, but playing a game requires hours to get used to the controls and move the character; in his chapter for Adaptation and Resilience in the Performing Arts, of virtual reality dance: ‘This real-time feedback, and the practice of feeling-out the kinaesthetic possibilities of the avatar, are a process through which we come to ‘recognise’ it as an extension of self’. Visually and tactilely linking performer movements and words to the motions of an avatar body, and getting response from fellow performers, takes rehearsal just like any other part of traditional theatre.

Clemence Debaig told me about her own research on the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC’s) Dream, a 2021 VR theatre piece with actors in motion capture suits reacting to the audience who were embodied in glowing, floating lights (if they paid for this ticket option). In her chat with Maggie Bain, one of the actors in the show, Debaig found that, despite a six-week residency and rehearsal period, ‘They only got the avatar one day before the premier! So, at no point they could build this muscle memory to embody the character, and they were very mechanic the way then they could act with it. … that needs to work together, trial and error’ throughout the whole rehearsal process. In contrast, you can see in the image above that the OnBoardXR team offered a good amount of rehearsal time in VR for the performers to get used to maneuvering their avatars.

, compares the two acting styles in an article, 'Gods, Tigers, and Avatars: What Puppeteering Can Teach Us About Creating Great VR Experiences'. Based on his experiences as both an artist and an audience member, Martin creates six performance principles that bring in-person puppets to life, and which can translate to virtual acting as well. These principles are Breath, or effectively and subtlely moving the puppet/avatar with the human performer's breathing; Focus (eyeline), which, like traditional stage acting, can increase tension and meaning in a scene by clarifying what the character/puppet/avatar is focused on and finds important; Body, specifically integrating the gravity or weight of a character's size into the world of the show; movement communication, related to focus, and compared to visually following a tennis ball at a game; Stillness, which can create tension and drama; and finally, Imagination, or the creative interpretation of how the puppet/avatar physically and narratively fits into the world. These suggestions are a good overview for navigating a character's performance using an avatar in VR (or, for that matter, a character in a videogame).