Spy School Is In Session: ‘Spy Academy & The Lost Treasure of Atlantis’ (Review)

The three agents of Spy Team 7 have become trapped in the lair of the wicked Dr. Levinious while searching for the mysterious Heart of the Dragon, and their only hope is … a class of spy cadets. On their first day. During remote learning. This may be challenging.

Spy Academy & The Lost Treasure of Atlantis is a hybrid performance conducted over Zoom that combines pre-recorded video segments with interactive segments involving puzzles and other activities conducted by a live performer. The audience takes the role of the newest cohort at the International Spy Academy, and the live performer plays their Surveillance 101 teacher, Pat. (There appear to be different “Pat” characters for each of three live performers, and which one you get depends on which show you attend.) Imagination Stage sends a packet of handouts ahead of time for parents to print out for use during the interactive parts of the show.

Pat is effectively a narrator for the show, explaining the backstory of the International Spy Academy, Spy Team 7, and other useful context, as well as facilitating the show’s interactive segments. During those segments, the audience decides which paths Spy Team 7 takes, and helps solve puzzles and other challenges using the handouts from the packet. Interspersed with those interactive sections are pre-recorded segments showing Spy Team 7 carrying out the instructions they get from the class as they work their way through Dr. Levinious’ lair.

I thought this structure was a clever approach to adapting the traditional audience-interaction tools of children’s theatre to a remote environment. My nine-year-old son, however, did not like it. A lot. And I think the blame for this ultimately falls on Zoom.

Children’s theatre, more than traditional theatre, often relies on an actively-managed dynamic between performers and audience. Narrators can be as much hype men as anything else. Performers solicit advice from the audience. We clap to save Tinkerbell. The show creates, for a little while, a community. Zoom does not do that.

We talk about Zoom calls as meetings, but that’s not really what they are. Zoom is fundamentally a broadcast medium, one person talking to many; it’s just that it allows participants to take turns. It handles crosstalk poorly, and offers limited opportunities for participants to observe each other. This is one reason Zoom can be so exhausting; it seems like it *ought* to feel like a communal experience, and it just doesn’t.

For this reason, a lot of the interactive experiences in Spy Academy fell flat. For example, there were several occasions when the audience was invited to choose what Spy Team 7 would do. But we could see at most a handful of other audience members, all of whom were muted. When Pat announced what the class had chosen, it didn’t feel like a group decision; it didn’t feel any different from Pat announcing an arbitrary choice. Being on the losing end of a group decision without really being able to feel the process is, I think, almost worse than not having choices to make at all.

This was maybe most disappointing during what appeared to be the most consequential choice of the show, a segment during which Spy Team 7 splits up for a while, and the audience has to choose which of the three agents to follow, and then do an interactive activity. Each of the three associated activities came with a numbered handout, and the unused handouts made really tangible the roads not traveled. My son was visibly deflated when the class chose a different agent from the one he was hoping to follow, and disappointed at not getting to do the other paths.

Also, some of the choices offered to the audience did not seem very meaningful. For example, at the climax of the show, Spy Team 7 had to choose between saving the Heart of the Dragon and saving one of the characters. The group chose to save the character, but then the team saved the Heart of the Dragon anyway. “So that was pointless,” my son said.

Pat’s banter also did not connect. Our Pat was a sort of goofy, overenthusiastic character, a classic narrator archetype, and our performer gave it her all. But without the give and take of a palpable audience, it just didn’t land in our house. The word “cringe” was used.

By contrast, the pre-recorded segments were much more successful. The sets and props were simple but effective, in a vintage PBS sort of way. The actors did a great job of helping us get to know the different characters and illustrating the relationships between the characters and the audience. Despite being unenthused about the show as a whole, my son did get invested in the characters.

The pacing of the overall show suffered a bit from the switching back and forth between the recorded and interactive segments, with the result that while the individual scenes were compelling, the plot of the show as a whole was a little vague. I don’t actually remember why Spy Team 7 was trying to find the Heart of the Dragon, or what that had to do with saving the world. That said, I’m not sure it really matters. The performers sold the emotional reality of the scenes so well I didn’t notice the plot holes at the time. It works for J.J. Abrams, and it worked here.

Another issue I want to highlight is that while Imagination Stage advertises Spy Academy as an experience for kids age 5 and up, I think ages 5 to 7 would probably be more accurate. My nine-year-old was, I think, really too old for the show; the other kids I saw on the Zoom sidebar around his age also seemed unenthusiastic, while the younger kids were more excited and engaged.

Imagination Stage has strong children’s theatre chops, and a lot of effort clearly went into adapting those capabilities to a remote environment. For this show, however, the Zoom medium did much more harm than good. The end result was fun, but might have been just as good — or even better — if it had been pre-recorded in its entirety.

Spy Academy and the Lost Treasure of Atlantis currently runs through May 23. Tickets are $25 per household.

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