Don Quixote – Theatre of the Blind

There is something unsettling about being led into an auditorium blindfolded – about entrusting yourself, minus a faculty, into the hands of a group of people you have never met before. But the hands of Muckle Roe Productions are capable ones, and what starts off as an unnerving experience soon turns into a very enjoyable one.

The St Andrews University cast of students make impressive use of music, their own voices and all kinds of props and devices to create sounds, sensations and even smells, which make the action of the story spring to life from behind, in front of, below and above us, positioning the audience and themselves in such a way within the space available that we are quite literally in the middle of the action. Their speech is clear and their voices easily distinguishable from each other, so that we have no trouble in understanding what is going on.

Of course, there are obvious limitations to this kind of theatre: the actors cannot rely on movement or facial expression to win us over; and, simultaneously, they have an advantage over other actors which, in retrospect, causes slight mistrust: with a crucial faculty of observation denied, one wonders whether one's been tricked into thinking the performance better than it was.