NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE — A confession: I’m strongly averse to audience participation in the theatre.
Nope, that’s putting it too mildly.
I hate it.
Why? Because it so rarely works. If you’re not being asked to clap along like a seal, then you’re probably being infantilized like a kindergartener.
Meanwhile, any participation of true substance (when a random audience member is dragged into the action, usually without their consent) is typically a sign that the writers have run out of ideas. They’re likely hoping the poor audience member makes a fool of themselves onstage to inject some much needed humour that their actors can then exploit for the rest of the show.
As far as I’m concerned, up until last week, I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing another show with audience participation and would have been all the happier for that.
Then I caught a recent performance of the Shaw Festival’s “Murder-on-the-Lake.” Created by Rebecca Northan and Bruce Horak, the team behind Spontaneous Theatre, this improvised play running at the Royal George Theatre doesn’t merely include audience participation as a lame afterthought. Rather, it’s embedded into the DNA of the show. And it’s a superb example — for once! — of audience participation done right.
The premise of this murder mystery is simple: a woman named Jan (played by Northan) suddenly dies while vacationing in Niagara-on-the-Lake with her partner and their close friends. Niagara Regional Police don’t initially suspect foul play. But an autopsy later reveals that Jan actually died of poisoning. This was no death from natural causes; it was a cold-blooded murder.
Now, a year later, Jan’s former spouse and friends are back in town for their annual trip. And police hope to finally crack the case by embedding an undercover cop at the same bed and breakfast where the friends are staying (and where the murder took place).
The twist: the detective is played by a member of the audience, who’s onstage for the entire show. While the play’s basic premise remains the same, each performance is almost entirely improvised, with the actors playing off the energy and actions of the guest detective.
It’s easy to imagine how a show of this nature could go oh so wrong. But that it didn’t at the performance I attended (and I doubt it ever will during this run) is a testament to how Northan and Horak have built their production and the guardrails they’ve put in place.
For one, the audience member selected to play the officer is not picked at random. Instead, those interested in volunteering are screened in the lobby before the show begins and briefed on what the walk-on role entails. (Other theatre producers should take note; we need more informed consent when employing audience participation.)
The show itself is also structured in a way that ensures the audience member feels safe and supported throughout. One of the production’s best dramatic devices: Northan appears onstage as Jan’s ghost, visible only to the undercover detective. In reality, she’s there to serve as a guide, nudging the audience member along if they’re feeling stuck and making sure the action never drags.
Finally — and most importantly — Northan and Horak surround their walk-on star with an ensemble of the festival’s finest actors. (In addition to Northan and Horak, the cast includes Kristopher Bowman, Cosette Derome, Sochi Fried, Virgilia Griffith, Travis Seetoo and André Morin, the latter subbing for Martin Happer at the performance I attended.)
Much of the fun of this production is watching these actors play in the sandbox that is improvisation. What’s especially impressive is that even though they’re riffing off what the audience member is handing them, they still manage to ensure that all the necessary plot points are conveyed at just the right moment. (The worst thing that can happen at the end of a murder mystery is for the facts not to add up. Thankfully, that’s not the case here.)
Of course, each performance will vary greatly depending on the guest actor. At the show I attended, the audience member chosen to play the detective was nothing short of a hoot and a half. She wove the fact that she was a high school English and drama teacher into her character; her undercover cop was to be disguised as one.
When things heated up, she assumed her “teacher voice”: “Sit down!” she bellowed to the suspects, wagging her index finger at them and eliciting a roar of laughter from the audience in the process.
It’s hard to say how another performance, with another audience member in the lead role, would play out. But I think Northan and Horak’s show is strong enough to hold up even with a guest star who has less stage presence than the hilarious woman I saw.
And as for me, “Murder-on-the-Lake” may have just proven that audience participation isn’t such a terrible thing after all.
