The Salon Project @ The Traverse

In a time of political uncertainty, the past can seem attractive. Yet despite harking back to the genteel drawing rooms of the ninteenth century, Stewart Laing's Salon Project is more than an exercise in nostalgia. Recreating the atmosphere of the intellectual salon, and dressing the audience in well-tailored costumes, Laing is looking towards the future.

Stewart Laing has become one of the most dynamic Scottish directors over the last decade - whether updating classics for Scottish Opera or collaborating with writers like Pamela Carter, his trademark integration of set design and directorial vision has made his Untitled Projects a byword for imaginative theatre. After his recreation of Tramway into a faux Garden of Eden for An Argument About Sex, The Salon Project takes his process to the next level, by costuming the audience themselves.

Laing acknowledges that his operas have always avoided period costume. His version of La Boheme landed the tragic love story in contemporary New York, while Slope connected the French bad boy poet Rimbaud to his modern, rock'n'roll counterparts. Ironically, now that he has taken up the costumes of the past, his material is utterly contemporary. Guests at his salon will be treated to interventions and conversations on the latest scientific and cultural topics.

This foray into immersive theatre, which is quite the fashion at the moment, rejects the sometime prevalent idea that getting the audience involves means aggression and confrontation. The audience will be surrounded by happenings, and invited into conversation, but Laing is more concerned with encouraging intellectual discussion than shock and awe.

Explaining that there is a narrative within The Project, Laing adds that there is freedom for each audience member to follow their own path through the evening: the nature of the event ensures that each experience will be unique. 

By shifting back in time, and disconnecting the audience from the natural expectations of Theatre, The Project promises to deconstruct the usual responses to theatre without the aggression that is often the hallmark of companies like Ontroerend Goed. Laing has always been an intellectual and thoughtful director: by transforming the Traverse, he can transfer this engaged meditation to the audience.