Review: Rooms

Style: Human-free theatre
Where: Silk Street Theatre, Barbican
When: 11 – 19 April

Rating: 3.5/5

Rooms confronts you with an interesting question: What is theatre? Where does the live experience begin and end? It has been described as theatre without actors but that’s not strictly true. It is theatre without live actors?

The audience are guided to a series of rooms (Girls Bedroom is pictured above) and after a short while to explore the space, a recording of someone telling a tale is heard. The tales are the stories of the people who would normally occupy the rooms, but they remain unseen. We have their voice and we have the room. A recording and a set. Is this theatre?

One of my companions was unsure. She posited at the end that the show would have been good on the radio. But for me, the visceral nature of the rooms – the ambiance, the smells, the details of the decor added a lot to the experience. In the same way that music is more than just poetry set to a tune, perhaps these stories needed these sets to be truly impactful.

I did miss actors though. I did miss the way that other immersive shows make you feel like part of the action rather than simply an onlooker. So while Rooms was definitely a show that made me think, I would say that I didn’t find it a show that was truly immersive. However, I do not believe it would be better on the radio.