One of my favourite Seinfeld scenes is when Jerry's new girlfriend wants him to take a lie detector test to see if he watches Melrose Place. His attempts to pass the polygraph prove futile as he crumbles under the pressure. Now it's your turn to beat the test with TRUTHMACHINE. Presented as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, audiences have the opportunity to be quizzed in an intimate gathering and then be judged by their peers if they have passed or failed the test.
Created by COUNTERPILOT, who brought us the incredible Crunch Time at last year's Next Wave Festival, this is another immersive and interactive show where the audience / participants play just as much a role in this work as its makers do. This involved aspect of the show is what COUNTERPILOT co-founder Nathan Sibthorpe enjoys the most and what he believes audiences are looking for these days. "Interactive work is popular with audiences because it
capitalises on the very thing that makes theatre so unique in a
saturated cultural landscape. The fact that an audience is present and
that we are sharing this moment together is what will always give live
performance its edge over Netflix," he explains. "But work that explicitly allows the
audience to be present, to participate, and to be wide awake and active
goes that extra step. Our usual theatre audience job is to sit still, be quiet
and disappear in the darkness, but interactive work offers a
hyper-theatricality that really pays us back for having left the comfort
of our couches."
