Work Experience Student Kian: Away With the Trolls for a Weekend

Our work experience student Kian didn’t know what he was letting himself in for when he signed up for a week at Oily Cart.

To call this week of work experience unconventional would be putting it lightly. As friends tell of their taxing, painstaking days, agonising over accounting details or sifting through old case documents, I have been chased by trolls, built caves out of tents and waved maracas while wearing a hat that would rival that of the royal family. Needless to say it’s been an eventful time.

Never had questions of smell or feel of props ever occurred to me…they became just as vital to immersing the audience as sights and sounds

As a year 12 student planning to study acting, being thrown headfirst into the world of sensory theatre the past few days have provided an enlightening insight into a lesser explored area of performance, and the unique difficulties and opportunities that come with it. Drafted in to support performances of The Cart for the Wandsworth Fringe gave me a whole new perspective on theatre.

Take prop design for example. Sensory theatre, after all, focuses on appealing to senses and props are one crucial way of doing this. Never had questions of the smell or feel of props ever occurred to me, though here, because of the audience’s close handling of them, smell and feel suddenly become as vital to immersing the audience as sights and sounds.

Never before have I seen an audience so utterly captivated by a performance

Equally, the unique acting style shown off by the performers, requiring close contact with the audience, though at first quite unfamiliar, makes every performance that bit different from the last, providing near-constant learning opportunities. The sheer energy that the actors were able to retain right through to the end of the show is a testament to the importance of the age-old lesson of putting yourself out there, or, as one of my colleagues put it, “it doesn’t matter whether you crash and burn, you’ve just got to go for it”. And indeed, that is exactly what they did (the second bit – not the crashing and burning bit) and as they sang and danced their way around the stage, it was a struggle not to get up and join in at times, with this contagious atmosphere not loosening its grip until long after the performance ended.

Truly the performances did not end with the final line, but only once all the audience had walked out the gate. The children continued to talk and play with the actors for some time after the show had finished – evidence that it had worked its magic. This was perhaps what surprised me the most: the involvement of the children. Never before have I seen an audience so utterly captivated by a performance, telling of the incredible power of theatre to reach a group often left excluded in the arts.

The experience has left me with a newfound appreciation of sensory theatre

I’ve had a great time, be that desperately trying to stop a tent from blowing away or flapping people’s arms up and down like wings, the sheer variety of stuff I’ve gotten up to has provided a wonderful few days, only made better by the warm, welcoming team. With them I’ve been rescued from falling off a chair mid-performance, had some illuminating discussions about the theatre industry (and the new ‘Elvis’ movie – not worth it), and have even been to Pret A Manger for the first time (also not worth it).

Regardless, the experience has left me with a newfound appreciation of sensory theatre, renewed enthusiasm for working in the industry and the jobs opportunities available, and songs that I shall have stuck in my head for the next couple of months. And for that, I am nothing but grateful.