Review: NO SAVE POINTS at Outside The March

Outside the March brings another innovative and interactive theatrical experience to Toronto audiences with No Save Points, playing at the Lighthouse ArtScape until June 25 2023. Writer and creator Sébastien Heins had a rough time growing up with an ailing mother who suffered from a rare genetic disease that could have passed on to him. In the way many kids growing up in the ‘90s did, Heins turned to his Game Boy for solace and escape. In No Save Points, Heins wrote an ever evolving and playable story about his experiences as seen through the lens of a character in a video game and then places the controller in the hands of the audience.

Through radio technology, the Game Boy controller passed among the audience triggers a small safe frequency delivered to nodes that are taped to Heins’ body informing him which way the audience member would prefer him to move thus making this live theatrical experience a playable video game. At the first act, four audience members are pre-selected to take seats on stage and command the controller providing the rest of the audience an idea of how the Heins as the video game character could be played. Heins takes his spot behind a screen, as if he’s inside the game, and the fun begins. He’s managed to hone his movements to accurately mimic that of a Game Boy character and to respond to the controller prompts he receives – holding a button for a moment too long or too short means missing the moment needed to crouch or jump to the next level, just like you’d experience in game. There is a bit of finesse needed to successfully control this game just like any Game Boy game but like those games, this one is fairly easy to pick up once you get the hang of it. Later on, the controller gets passed among the audience for more people to try.

On opening night, it became clear that the radio signal didn’t quite reach the back of the audience so those sitting near the back who tried the controllers received a rather unresponsive experience in the game, much to their and the rest of the audience’s growing frustration. Hopefully this signal issue has been fixed since.

Hats off to Heins for not only his delivery in this very physical performance but for his story writing as well. The illness that befell his mother is Huntington’s Disease, an illness that myself and likely most of the audience are unfamiliar with. His story managed to quickly and effectively relay the debilitating effect this illness can have on a body, the rareness of it and therefore how experimental the treatments of it are, and how it can affect a family and, in particular, the life of a young boy. Heins shows resilience in his child-self, much like the heroes in his games, and does his best to come out as victorious as he can.

Equal praise also goes out to the rest of the creative team including Mitchell Cushman who co-directed next to Heins, set designer Anahita Dehbonehie, lighting designer Melissa Joakim, and sound designer Heidi Chan for bringing these games to life. Heins’ story is told in between the games which leaves the actual games with very little dialogue, and yet through visuals, projections and movements, the in-game story is clearly understood.

No Save Points is a lively and certainly entertaining experience perfect for theatre-goers and gamers alike, you won’t want to miss this.

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