Liars and Believers’ "Interference" Immerses Audience

Emily White ’16 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer

The Liars and Believers’ production of Interference is as beautiful, sickening, and thought provoking as Picasso’s 1937 painting, Guernica, the inspiration for this show. Interference is an immersive multimedia experience: an artistic endeavor that goes beyond the traditional play. It incorporates monologue, original music, live soundscape, lighting effects, movement, and incredible visual imagery to springboard from Guernica and the horror that inspired it to the modern acts of terrorism we still experience today. Like Guernica, Interference uses a Modernist approach to deconstruct realities and reassemble them as a haunting, multi-perspective artwork.
Picasso’s Guernica was inspired by the 1937 bombing of Guernica, a small town in Spain, by German and Italian forces during the Spanish Civil War that raged before and during WWII. Picasso created this painting as a visceral and graphic reaction to the crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War. His art commanded serious reflection for his audiences around the world, which is what Liars and Believers attempt to do in Interference, warning their own audience of history’s tendency to repeat itself.
Act One of Interference focuses on translating the artwork into theatrical elements by using a deconstructive Cubist approach. Cubism in the theatre, much like in Picasso’s paintings, attempts to analyze reality, presenting it from many perspectives at the same time, which Interference does with a combination of soundscape, lighting, video, and text performed by actors. The actors are costumed in black, gray, and white: the shades which make up Picasso’s Guernica. A woman with a candle appears as a narrator and ghost, whom we then see animated on the screen, as a figure in distress holding a candle in Picasso’s painting. The story of an invented character, a clown in 1937 Guernica who longs to be a bullfighter but is disarmed by the bombing, is highlighted throughout the show. Both the disarmed figure and the bull appear onscreen as part of the painting, as well. His story culminates with an amusing bullfight with a twist ending at the end of the first act.
Interference’s real power lies not with its characterization, but with its more subtle interpretation of human acts of violence as theatrical experience. The visual imagery was at once gorgeous, terrifying, and overwhelming. In fact, the most arresting moment of the show was a point in which almost nothing at all happened. Lights were changing colors, and the soundscape was present, but there was no action occurring onstage or onscreen. This experience forced the audience to constantly shift its perspective from one part of the venue to the other, never knowing where to look next, and eventually discovering that there was nothing to be seen. This moment of confusion perfectly encapsulated the feeling which the production was attempting to portray: the feeling of desperation and lack of control that occurs during a tragic event.
During the second act, the connection to modern issues became increasingly apparent. A runner appeared throughout both acts. As the gray, candle-holding character spoke of “the smell of cities on fire,” a connection to the Boston bombing became apparent. At the end of the play, a terrifying and haunting video was shown, which involved the splicing together of multiple black and white news clips from 9/11 and the Boston bombing incident. Eventually images from Picasso’s Guernica were layered on top of these newsreels, and the connection was clear. As the shocking video began to end, the live singers repeated “Oh God, another one,” in a haunting song. Here, the trajectory of the production depicted the truth of human tendency: to ignore and repeat. Terror and violence will continue to happen if the world continues to ignore it.
Interference inspires action and reaction through a visceral artistic experience, just as Picasso’s Guernica did in 1937. While not a literal interpretation of the painting, the production conveys the feeling of being inside not only the painting, but the swirling and unreal elements that exist at the painting’s core. Liars and Believers convey those messages by forcing the audience to see, hear, to become part of human suffering through an immersive theatrical experience. Interference was triggering and shocking, but in a way healing, in that it created a shared audience experience of processing tragedy. For those affected by the Marathon bombing, such a close issue to home, it was comforting to feel pain through the characters and by sharing the pain with the audience around. Rather than hiding the fear and trauma, it was collectively spread through the audience. Though the show only ran for one night, it would be worth keeping an eye on the Liars and Believers company to see what groundbreaking material they might produce next.