Theatre is set to be revolutionised by new technology that can recreate an entire production in the comfort of your own home. Avatars of actors can be reproduced and shrunk to just a few inches high so that they can act, dance or sing on your coffee table. Or they can perform lifesize, turning your entire living room into a stage. The 3D performers are so real, you can walk around them and watch them from different angles.
Productions previously seen by a few hundred people could now be made available to millions worldwide, including in schools, hospitals and community centres.
The company adapting the technology is the Imaginarium Studios in London. Glenn Kelly, its head of production, claims that, within only a few years, digital performances will be as simple to access as downloading movies today.
“Viewers wear a light headset and a 6in body pack, like a handbag,” he said. “It’s not like virtual reality. You’re not closed off from the world. The headset is see-through. So, if there’s nothing being displayed, you can still see the world around you, in the same way as if you were wearing glasses. We tried this at the Bristol Old Vic with some very traditional patrons. Nobody had an issue with wearing it.”
Imaginarium was founded by the actor and director Andy Serkis, who appeared as a computer-animated Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films. His company is now collaborating with the War Horse director Tom Morris, after Morris worked with Imaginarium on a 3D digital version of The Grinning Man, his award-winning macabre musical, which transferred to the West End from the Bristol Old Vic.
Kelly said that Serkis had been to the penultimate Grinning Man show in London: “He loved it to the point that that evening he thought, we have to capture this, we can’t let this die.”
Re-enacting the production in Imaginarium’s studio, the actors wore motion-capture gear, allowing their body and facial movements to be digitally applied to 3D avatars.
When the Grinning Man actors watched the 3D re-enactments for the first time, they were taken aback. He said: “Seeing a video of yourself gives you a 2D version. But they could walk around themselves. It’s quite extraordinary.”
The technology is being tried out behind the scenes and is not available to the public yet. For now, theatre lovers not able to get to a live play have to rely on their local cinema to screen a limited number of West End performances.
However, cinema screenings of plays are “an interpretation of a show”, said Kelly, adding: “The director is deciding on the camera angle. With this technology, the audience decides which part they’re watching. You can blow it up and wander around, and watch it from the side of a stage, as a stage manager does.”
It also allows directors to go beyond what can physically be done in a theatre by manipulating and adding elements, he said.
Morris recalled the excitement of their initial experiments. He said: “The Grinning Man has an opening chorus number called Laughter is the Best Medicine, which begins as a solo sung by Julian Bleach. Then all the chorus come out and dance. When you put the glasses on and you’re looking at a table, a little 9in-high Julian Bleach comes out and starts performing. You can walk all the way round him. You can see other people looking at him as well.” Then he watched as Bleach was blown up to lifesize and beyond.
This technology is “thrilling”, he said, adding: “A 3D world superimposed on your real world means you could theoretically have a dinner party in your house, leave an empty chair and Queen Victoria, Lord Byron or Florence Nightingale could be there – and everyone could see them at the same time.”
