Review: ALL FALLS DOWN, VAULT Festival

Let me begin this review by saying that I wanted to love this show. On the VAULT Festival's website, All Falls Down is described with the keywords "horror," "improv," and "interactive." The show itself is "about a group of friends trying to make contact with civilisation, and survive in the wilderness, after a plane crash."

Unfortunately, while the show was certainly improvised by the sole performer and interactive as it depended on its audience, it failed to bring horror to the VOID.

Walking into the shipping container (yes, the VOID venue is literally a shipping container), I was surprised by the minimalism of the show. The contained was shrouded in black curtains and a man stood in front of a small table with a Jenga block tower. The table was covered in fake trees and greenery along with pieces of a plane, meant to represent the setting that the storytelling would be taking place in.

Joe, our host, introduced himself and the theatre company that created All Falls Down, Chronic Insanity. He then explained that the outcome of the story would depend entirely on us, the audience, as he would give us some starting points and we would go from there, making choices and taking pieces from the Jenga tower. The show was mainly Joe telling the story and then pausing to let audience members chime in with what they think should happen next, which would influence what Joe would say next.

Unfortunately, while the concept of All Falls Down was interesting, in reality, the show was a bit boring and had very little exciting action. The website had stated that "the audience's actions decide how the story progresses, who or what they make contact with and, most importantly, how many of them survive the ordeal." Joe mentioned that we each had our own characters within the show, but I found myself simply reacting in the way I would if I was in the situation, making myself a form of self-insert character in All Falls Down.

It might have just been the particular audience that I was with, but I found that only three or four of us ended up contributing, basically forming the story ourselves as everyone watched in silence. I think that there were only four of us, including the host, who ended up being the ones to remove blocks from the Jenga tower.

I appreciate the level of inclusion and accessibility within the show. If audience members were scared of a particular thing, they could let the host know and their fears would not be mentioned as part of the "horrors" found in the woods. You were able to stand or sit in the space depending on your preference and could even turn on your phone's torch if you were uncomfortable with the darkness.

Ultimately, All Falls Down is an interesting concept that fails to draw the audience into its story. The inclusive aspects and the ability of audiences to completely influence the story are good as a concept, but sometimes there can be situations in which an audience can be given too much power.

I found myself constantly thinking about what could have happened or where we could have gone if other audience members had spoken up. But maybe that is the point of All Falls Down; leaving you with thoughts of infinite possibilities of what could have happened in the woods.

All Falls Down plays from 24 to 28 January at the VAULT Festival in the Void at Lower Marsh.

Photo Credit: VAULT Festival