Work
THE LUCKY ONES
Maker Candle House · Work date 2019-12 · Medium telephone · Role work
Description
It opens as corporate small talk and becomes a mass shooting. The participant is a friend on the other end, giving what support they can while it happens, and afterwards is taken through the systemic questions in a follow-up counselling call. Performed by Taylor Feld as Blake and Cassidy Sledge as the social worker Lena.
Source. https://candlehouse.org
Part of Candle House's Under the Bed, a select-your-own-experience menu of remote one-to-one encounters reviewed in December 2019. Participants who booked four or more connections also received a call from the Operator, a host who framed the stories and remembered what the participant had already been through — cross-call memory, three years before the field noticed it.
Anatomy
Thirteen criteria after Lauren R. Beck. Each carries a source grade: M maker-confirmed, P published, F first-hand, I inferred by the compiler, ? not yet established. Definitions are on the anatomy page.
- Participants listen through headphonesnoI
A phone call.
- Participants move through space as part of the worknoI
The participant takes the call where they are.
- Audio technology is necessaryyesP
Calls are the whole delivery.
- Site-, situation- or language-specificnoI
Placeless.
- Engages with the history of a sitenoI
No documented past of a real place.
- Created for an urban environmentnoI
No urban dependence.
- Created as an artwork other than theaternoP
A theater company, presenting an encounter.
- Intended to be understood as theateryesP
Candle House frames its work as theater.
- Accidental real-world sights and sounds are importantunknown?
Not addressed.
Did you experience this? Tell us - Spectator must participateyesP
The participant is cast as a friend and confidant and must respond during a crisis.
- Has live performers other than the participantsyesP
Two live performers, across the crisis call and the counselling call that follows.
- Involves game playnoI
No rules, objective or resolution state.
- Uses props other than the listening deviceunknown?
Not addressed.
Did you experience this? Tell us
2 of thirteen are still unknown for this work. If you experienced it, you can settle them in a minute.