Random Acts: Smashing the fourth wall

Playback Theatre, as befits its origins in therapeutic processes, sits at the midpoint between improvisational comedy, drama and psychoanalysis. By inviting the audience to contribute stories, Random Acts leap over the fourth wall and smash the gap between performance and life in a series of humorous sketches and living tableaux.

Gentle rather than challenging, the Playback formula is simple. The Conductor – a composite director, counsellor and MC – asks the audience to tell their stories, and the three performers convert these into scenes. Inevitably, I threw myself into the fray, and persuaded the company that they needed to dramatise my latest romantic misadventure. I then spent the next five minutes dying of embarrassment as I watched myself and my elusive beloved chase each other around the Fringe. Notably, other contributions did not reveal such self-laceration and emotional timidity.

The experience of seeing my life become art was fascinatingly awkward. Since Random Acts keep it light and funny, my on-stage avatar was comic, a parody of the headstrong romantic that I fondly imagine myself. The abrupt conclusion – playback scenes are concluded suddenly, at the ringing of a bell – captured the suspended possibilities of the situation without offering the merciful release of scripted drama. I wanted resolution, hoping for some predictive power to reveal itself. Instead, I was thrown back onto my own lovesick confusion, forced to question my absurdity and observe the gap between real life and the internal scripts that I run in my mind.

Even worse, it exposed my own need for structure that imposes itself on my readings of theatre. Not only was my idealised beloved’s diffidence clarified, my obsessive attendance at the theatre was a reflection of my desire to control life, to seek patterns and use these poor actors as projections of my insecurities.

If I found it painful, this isn’t the fault of Random Acts, who carried out their roles with aplomb. Finding the humour without spite, throwing together a coherent narrative from mumbled suggestions and offering a kindly reflection of the audience’s stories, they exhibited a confident professionalism and compassion. Playback is a brilliant tool for both experimental performance and a charming therapy, no doubt suited to challenging assumptions about drama’s function and weaning hard-core cases from their theatre addiction.

In the meantime, Random Acts ended their too short run at The Fringe, I went back to messing up friendships through my comedic mash-up of Bronte and Austen’s male leads. I am sticking to heart-rending Sarah Kanes, Live Art blood letting and obscure Belgian dance. It’s much safer.