‘The Others’ Are Right Here (Review)

Editor’s Note: E3W Productions’ Where The Others Are was, like so many shows, forced to close because of the current pandemic. Before heading into lockdown, the team filmed the production, creating a rare archival version of the show. Such a peculiar document calls for a peculiar approach, so we assigned two writers — one who saw, and loved the original production (Noah Nelson) and one who was scheduled to, but foiled by the lockdown (Kevin Gossett).

An airstream trailer parked out of back of an old boarding house. The sounds of cicadas filling the air. An almost breathless woman opens the door, desperation and hope dancing across her face in a tense duet as she lays eyes on you.

The imagery of Where The Others Are remains as potent on film as it was in person, which should be less of a surprise than it is, given that creators E3W Productions were filmmakers before they were immersive theatre creators.

A simple hook is baited for the story: you are cast as friends of Maggie, who has asked you over to help her escape her husband Ben. She’s finally had enough. It’s a straightforwardly tense enough scenario complicated by the fact that Maggie believes Ben is no longer human. That he’s been replaced by something other.

It’s an idea that could slide right into camp inside a camper if not for the meticulous design sensibilities of producer Natalie Jones and directors Austin and Aaron Keeling, which act as the canvas for Emily Goss’ grounded performance of Maggie. Goss sells the urgency and intensity through a kind of cyber ability that reads like a freshly cracked facade, her fear, anger and need barely held back. Something is wrong, obviously, but otherworldly?

And then Daniel Van Thomas’ Ben shows up, with an unnerving intensity that feels like it is being channeled from someplace not on Earth.

All this translates neatly to the screen, although I can’t be entirely sure as I had the privilege of seeing the show before lockdown forced the end of its run here in Los Angeles. The filmed version captures all of the feelings evoked by being at the performance, but are those memories or is it just the story itself? I can’t be sure. (Hence the double review here.)

To be certain: there’s a special skill set required to translate an immersive production into a filmed one. E3W opts here to go with a mix of first and third person perspectives, treating the camera as the audience member one moment and then slipping off the axis the next to punch in on a critical detail or to summon an angle that heightens the emotion. For me it plays seamlessly, but again I wonder if that’s because I know what’s coming and I’m simply thrilled to hear writer Melissa Hughes’ poetic prose again.

There are moments that play flatter on film than they do in person, but paradoxically these are the pieces that felt the most cinematic live: as time slows down and we enter into the stream of consciousness of one of the characters. In person it felt like a revelation, a kind of “oh that’s how you do THAT,” but on screen I’m not sure if the flatness I find is also an artifact of how visceral the memory of those moments are.

One sequence plays better on film than it did for me in person, although a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it theatrical prop slithers in to tip the tone a little bit too far for my taste. (You’ll know what I mean if you don’t blink at the right moment.)

The question at the end of the day is this: did the production team manage to make something that leaves the audience with the same feeling? My vote is a resounding yes. This was the show. The show is better because I was there but these are the thoughts and feelings I had in person.

Of course, this wouldn’t really be possible in an adaption of a more interactive immersive, not without relying on a Netflix-like “choose your path” interface. The live production of Where The Others Are was an “on the rails” experience, but that’s not a knock: E3W uses those rails to pour in a lush level of detail on craft performances that radiate power. You are, in those moments, very aware that your inept fumbling could not craft a better story than the one you are playing midwife to.

Someday in the future we might be blessed with the return of the live production, although the odds of that get increasingly long. Which makes me so very grateful that this document exists.

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— Noah Nelson

I was supposed to see Where the Others Are on March 14 at 9:30 PM. LA was starting to shut down, but everything was still uncertain enough that I had gotten the arrival instructions. My wife and I even had discussions about whether we felt comfortable attending. And then the show was canceled. A small bummer in the scheme of things that were about to happen, but a bummer nonetheless.

E3W Productions has had an incredibly strong run of shows since debuting in 2017, culminating with their stunning In Another Room 2 .It was disappointing to think that I might not be able to see their follow up at all. Luckily, E3W had the foresight to film Where the Others Are before everything went totally kaput in Los Angeles.

And now, here it is, a few months later! It’s both a welcome treat for those who had tickets and were unable to see the show, as well as a way to open up a small, limited run show to a much wider audience. Indeed, it opens up E3W to a larger group of people than their short runs with small groups normally allows.

Before I get into the review proper, I wanted to talk through how I’m approaching it because it’s an odd one. Do I review this as an immersive theatre show that’s been filmed and try to touch on what may or may not have worked for a space that I was not physically in? Or do it come to it and treat it as a short movie? I think ultimately, like this Where the Others Are “filmed immersive theatre experience,” I’m going to end up splitting the difference.

This version of Where the Others Are places the viewer and the camera in the role of participant, and is viewed as if you were actually in the show. Except for when it doesn’t quite follow those rules, most obviously in a dance sequence that’s been amped up for the filmed version. And then, also in a couple of times when it doesn’t seem like the audience would normally “be” in a specific spot for a specific scene. From what I can tell, the film does this to make a scene more dramatic or to capture the emotion on the actors’ faces. It’s not really enough to distract from the finished product, but at the same time, it kind of does because I kept trying to figure out how this would have worked as an actual immersive experience.

I suppose I should stop rambling about format and talk about the actual show though. Where the Others Are is, at its core, a story about a husband and wife. He’s been abusive to her in the past, he isn’t any longer, but he also might be an alien now. She’s dealing with complicated feelings about her husband, their history, and the idea that he might be gone, but replaced with something that’s controlling in a different way.

Everything about the show has the hallmarks of an E3W show: great performances from the leads, sumptuous spaces, and elevating a basic genre premise into something else. Despite all of that, it didn’t quite work for me.

Some of that may just be in translating an immersive experience to a recorded one. Naturally, it loses the essence of an immersive show, which is being in the same space, breathing the same air as the actors. That goes double for this show, set inside a claustrophobic Airstream that would have made it all feel more intense. Perhaps it’s in the ability to see both tracks in the same show, which is normally a participant’s dream, but here it makes the taut show feel a little long. I found myself wondering while watching if I would have connected with it more while being in that space. And then what that says about storytelling in immersive theatre as a whole. Should these things hold up when removed from their intended medium? (That’s obviously a loaded question and not an entirely fair one. A movie wouldn’t work if you just stuck participants in it.)

Where the Others Are also feels different than E3W’s other shows, which makes sense because it was written by someone other than the company’s co-founders. However, at times that leaves it feeling more like a play than something immersive. It features long, involved monologues that are often interesting, but have some writerly tics that do feel like they would be more at home in a theater than in an immersive experience. The flipside is that they do work better in this recorded format. There’s also a sense of too many themes at play, which while I understand what the show was trying to do, to some degree it makes the ideas less impactful.

Overall though, this recorded version of Where the Others Are stands as an important artifact of the times we’re in right now. There was no choice but to cancel the show and this helps preserve it (something unusual for immersive theatre) while also making it more accessible to more people. And as I said before, I’m looking at this as some kind of hybrid review, and it is hard to judge the show for an experience that I did not actually experience as it was intended. But it’s also hard to separate this filmed version from what the show may have been, and I can’t help from trying to figure out what might have landed for me if I had seen the live production.

— Kevin Gossett

Where The Others Are — Filmed Immersive Theatre Experience is available on demand via Vimeo for $16.

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