Dark Radio, an interactive theatre piece, will explore the idea of espionage during the Cold War, with strong themes of disinformation, misinformation and secrets explored through sound design and lighting.
Director and lighting designer Martyn Roberts said the audience should not expect a traditional play, as members would be able to walk around the performance space and interact with the actors as part of an exploration of how radio and sound was used to communicate with spies during wartime.
"The audience aren’t seated, they are free to move around and engage with the presences. They might get handed something, or they might prefer to stand around the outside of the performance space."
The experience would be quite "spooky", with numbers, music, melodies and repeated phrases throughout the piece, and many different radio stations and sounds playing at the same time.
"Those are the spooks, so I call it the spooky spooks show, because it’s got all those spooks," Mr Roberts said.
He was born deaf and has worn hearing aids his entire life.
He found himself strangely drawn to sound, often returning to the idea of how hearing radio created emotional responses in people.
"I’d be in the playground and a taxi or a police car would drive past and the radio frequency would resonate in my ears — I was given the nickname Radar after that," Mr Roberts said.
His fascination with sound waves and radio signals was part of his inspiration for Dark Radio.
Sound designer Stephen Stedman said the audience would hear both incredibly loud parts of the performance and then quiet parts.
"It’s quite a dynamic experience... There’s an audio narrative, definitely constructed like a piece of music. It will reach a peak and then trail off," Mr Stedman said.
Although the performance explores themes about the Cold War, the idea of exploring espionage through radio was created by the Dark Radio team two years earlier and Mr Roberts expected people would draw parallels to current events.
"When we did the performance at Auckland, people spoke about how they felt it was a very timely work even though we created it nearly two years ago, well before the invasion of Ukraine.
"There's a narrative, if you want an origin story, this is part of the origin story of that — conflict, death and that tension between superpowers that is being carried out today."
