Find Your Escape in ‘Eschaton’ (Preview)
Last night, a Zoom DJ saved my life
I measure my life through Zoom calls. I attend university lectures on Zoom. I take final exams on Zoom. I talk to my friends on Zoom. Ladies happy hour? Jackbox game night? Remote escape room? Zoom, Zoom, and more Zoom. So familiar are the idiosyncrasies of Zoom’s interface that I can start to recite pro-tips in my sleep. Did you know? The space bar is a shortcut for unmuting; you’ll need to turn on the feature that allows you to see up to 49 participants at a time in gallery view as it’s off by default; your computer may not be powerful enough to support virtual backgrounds; don’t forget to spotlight your video when speaking.
And, of course, I partake in theatre via Zoom. To be fair: all creators are doing the best they can right now, but the best we can do is often distant, unsettling, awkward, and draining, though through no fault of our own. Video conferencing tends to flatten the fidelity of the face-to-face interactions into an uncanny valley of jerky, pixelated performances. The New York Times has reported that “distortions and delays inherent in video communication can end up making you feel isolated, anxious and disconnected.” This happens because the nuances of facial expressions get smoothed over by streaming algorithms; the tiny body language signals we subconsciously send each other get out of sync as our connection strength fluctuates and packets get dropped mid-conversation.
But how to overcome the inherent limitations of the platform? Lucky for us, Eschaton shows us how. Created and produced by Brittany Blum and Tessa Whitehead in collaboration with Taylor Myers, this interactive remote experience demonstrates what a team of talented designers and performers (and a smattering of Punchdrunk and Third Rail Projects veterans) can do through rigorous playtesting and a deeper understanding of the strange affordances of the medium.
But what exactly is Eschaton? It’s a little hard to explain but I’ll try my best.
A mysterious password-protected web site opens one hour before the virtual club’s doors open weekly on Saturday nights; it contains instructions for getting yourself into the right headspace before the performance begins. So, I follow suit by enabling my webcam, putting on some lipstick, sliding into a sequined top I haven’t worn in ages, and pouring myself a stiff drink. As I dim the lights, I have my charged up smartphone and laptop with Zoom at the ready, as instructed. We have only 60 minutes in the digital night club and I want to maximize every second.
After a brief moment of technical difficulties, my browser window shifts into a pre-recorded introduction video. A sultry woman explains that the citizens of this shuttered nightclub have desperately been awaiting us. Her face then bleeds into an interactive art installation in Chrome; moving around my cursor in my window reveals a multitude of passageways. Shall I enter the Cherry Lounge? Or the White Space? What are these virtual spaces, anyway? I click on one, launch Zoom, and watch.
After the telltale “ding dong” of a participant joining a call, I see a grid of surprised patrons before me. I smile. A handsome shirtless man is sitting in front of a white wall, crooning jazz standards (I recognize him as William Popp, formerly of Sleep No More among other things).
“Heaven, I’m in heaven…
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak….”
After a few verses of “Cheek to Cheek,” he starts engaging with the crowd even as we are all caught off guard. I realize that the performer can see us just as well as we can see him and he can easily call upon an attendee using their name, which Zoom helpfully displays in the corner of each square.
Eschaton soon reveals itself to be a series of nearly two dozen interconnected Zoom “rooms.” Staff members (with their webcams off) hover in the wings, typing messages into the chat windows of each call, leaving breadcrumb trails to other rooms, all of which are tantalizingly named. A room called “Rat Problem” shows a little bit of surrealist performance art: a man in a rat costume writhing in a white-sheet-draped room to the sounds of spoken word poetry. Next up, I stumble upon a wonderful bit of “Up Close Magic” with Greg Dubin who self-deprecatingly shows off a simple magic trick, calls his trick “lame,” and then explains how the trick works, only to have the second part of his act reveal itself as the actual magic trick all along. It’s an ouroboros which subverts my expectations and has me laughing out loud for the first time in ages.
I continue room hopping until I stumble upon what appears to be a stunning neon light-filled art installation a la James Turrell but is in actuality the studio of pole dance icon Alethea Austin. Then, on to the next one: burlesque performer Lilin does an exquisitely sultry number on her couch while draped in red light (in what appears to be her living room). I also spend some time with a DJ, a painter, a chef, as well as a hilarious Mitch Hedberg-esque comedian who tosses off witty one-liners punctuated by solo violin passages (in lieu of the traditional rimshot).
If this all sounds a bit extra, it’s because it is, and intentionally so.
Maybe that’s what we collectively need right now.
And after all my frantic room-hopping, where do I end up in the final moments of our hour together? In the “Dressing Room,” a queer dance-party-turned-therapy-and-dress-up hour as our host attempts to please the audience with the contents of their closet and asks if anybody has anything they need help working through at the moment. When asked “which of these three belts looks best?”, the answer from the crowd is indeed: all of them, at the same time. Our little Zoom group is raucous and demanding and having a blast. And thusly, we close out our time at Eschaton with some groovy tunes and a little dance party, followed by a farewell video from our mysterious host as the doors to the club close for the moment. That’s just the tip of the Eschaton iceberg, never mind the puzzle they also dropped into the chat at one point.
I’m told that around 250 people attended my Eschaton session but I often found myself with only a small group of folks in a particular Zoom room. Most people have signed into Eschaton alone but some couples have also dialed in tonight. And I’m heartened to see that quite a few have taken the “nightlife attire” suggestion quite seriously and have a libation in hand. Most of the Eschaton participants also have their webcams on so it’s easy to see their shock or delight upon entering a room to find an exercise instructor or a plaintive man playing the guitar in front of his boiler or a charming ingenue dressed to the nines, toasting to all of us who’ve come to play tonight. The laughter and smiles are “contagious” in the best way possible.
And as I shut down my laptop, I’m sad to leave behind this wonderful, screwball virtual nightclub, at least for now. But I find myself also revitalized about the possibilities of the form.
Who knows? Maybe Zoom isn’t so bad after all, when it’s put into the right hands.
Eschaton continues weekly on Saturday nights and is currently in previews. Tickets are $10.
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