I took off my shoes to enter the theater space. My eyeglasses, too. The shoes were part of the ritual, but it turned out that An Ark, an augmented reality theater piece showcased at The Shed in New York City, uses Magic Leap 2 glasses. And those don't work with my prescription. I put on contact lenses in the bathroom before the show.
In a carpeted room with dozens of people seated in the round, I put on the tethered pair of AR glasses. So did everyone else. We sat together while holographic performers, including famed actor Ian McKellen, manifested around us.
An Ark is an experiment, billed as "the first play created for mixed reality." I've seen AR experiences in immersive showcases before this that I'd call plays of a sort. But the nearly 50-minute run time of An Ark is probably the longest I've continuously been in a Magic Leap 2 headset. By the end, the glasses felt a bit warm on my nose. I was ready to take them off.
My colleague Bridget Carey and I both attended An Ark, running at The Shed until April 4, on an extremely cold day a few weeks ago. I'm still thinking about it. The experience was haunting. Emotional, but cold. It felt like we were present at a live theater event, and yet there were no live actors there at all.
Enlarge Image Hallways and walls invite you into the experience at An Ark, preparing you for how to put on the headset. Scott Stein/CNET
What does this mean for the future of physical theater? I certainly don't want live actors to go away. I don't think that's the intention of this play, either. The whole experience is presented as a memorial-like meditation on the liminal space after death.
Four (virtual) chairs appear in a semicircle in front of me, and one by one, the volumetrically captured actors appear. McKellen, Golda Rosheuvel, Arinzé Kene and Rosie Sheehy are hypnotizing as presences that feel like they're sitting right across from me. It's the eye contact, as Bridget says to me later. Also, it's the sense of how they're all battling for your attention.
My field of view on the glasses is only wide enough for about two of the four chairs. I turn my head back and forth to see what the others are doing. The actors talk to me, just to me, looking me in the eyes, imparting their stories: Do they know me? Do I know them?
Everyone in the theater space feels like they have these four actors seated across from them. It's a simultaneous illusion. But I can't see what anyone else is seeing: I just see them seated in a semicircle in front of me. That multiplicity might sound strange, but it succeeds here. It ends up feeling like we're all bearing witness together.
We're also sharing the same ambient audio. I realize this halfway through, that the full room sound I was hearing, of them being there with me, is also there for everyone. At least, I think we are. I'm pretty sure we are.
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