Bringing ‘The Willows’ Home (REVIEW)
The LA immersive theatre favorite gets adapted into 180° video
They say that everyone has two families: the family you’re born into and the family that you choose. Or, maybe, more to the point: the family that chooses you.
The Willows began as an immersive theatre piece in Los Angeles, the brainchild of a story devised by the artists at Just Fix It Productions who, until the debut of that show, were best known for Creep, their annual alternative haunt. At the conclusion of the second run of the live show the production company adapted The Willows into a stereoscopic VR film, which was released this month. This marks the first time that a complete immersive theatre production has been released commercially for headsets available to the public.
The story of The Willows — both the live show and this capture — is deceptively straightforward. The Willows family, having just suffered a loss, has invited the closest friends of their dearly departed Jonathan to join them in honoring his passing on. Those “closest friends” are you, the audience. Never mind that you have no real idea who the hell Jonathan is. Playing along is half the fun. So much so that you might never want to leave. Not that you have much say in the matter.
What’s remarkable about The Willows in VR is just how much of the tone and performances of the actors are preserved even in the 180-degree format that this release of the production presents. This is a testament to the strength of the stylistic choices that director Justin Fix and company made in the original production and the magnetic performances of the cast within that odd, uncanny tone.
The biggest departure from the live immersive production is that the VR viewer has a greater degree of agency over what parts of the narrative unspools. In the live show, the tracks that you end up on are almost all pre-determined by sitting order and luck.
In this home version the choice of which track to experience lays with the viewer. This is something that’s not entirely practical in the theatrical experience, but here it makes sense. Each chapter even concludes with a breakdown of the choices that others have made, in the style of Telltale Games’ narrative-driven video games. It’s a nifty touch, and the branching paths of the narratives mean that there’s plenty of reason to head back to the Willows’ home and discover parts of the story you have missed.
Thankfully this version allows you to skip ahead to the different choice points in each chapter once you’ve already played through them. This appears to be dynamic, with the ability to jump ahead to choices you’ve made, but not through scenes you haven’t witnessed.
It’s the first time I’ve really enjoyed longform video in VR.
Now here’s where I have to stop and say that I have zero idea how this video would come across to someone who hasn’t seen the show. What I can say is that while there are some serious departures in terms of physical point of view (fixed, duh, we’re not at light fields yet), musical score (there’s a constant underscore, which more often than not I found distracting), and a few editing effects that are, of course, absent from reality, the heart of The Willows is here.
Our home has become their home.
The Willows is available on the Amaze app for the Oculus Go and the Samsung Gear VR. The first episode is free and the whole experience clocks in at just $2.99, which is absurdly cheap. If you have a device, for the love of God, just buy this. It’s cheaper than a Silver Lake latte.
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