REASSEMBLED, SLIGHTLY ASKEW by Shannon Yee (DxT/SummerWorks). At Pia Bouman, Studio B. Aug 7 at noon, 2:30, 5:30 and 8 pm Aug 8 at 5:30 and 8 pm. See listing. Rating: NNNN
Part of the Dublin-Toronto exchange, this immersive, hyper-realistic audio-only show recreates writer/producer Shannon Yees experience of falling ill and nearly dying from an acquired brain injury.
Audience members lie blindfolded in hospital beds with headphones that play an extremely-well-produced 50-minute audio program that positions them as Yee in the experience.
It’s created using a fascinating technique called binaural recording the voices of Yees loved ones, doctors and nurses, as well as a rich layer of background noises, seem to emanate from and move through the surrounding 3-dimensional space.
The focus, though, is on Yees own hazy and choppy perception of what is going on and how her thought process evolves from illness through recovery.
Snippets of surgeries, painful IV insertions and her partner discussing options with doctors in the distance fade in and out and swirl together with her own anxious and disjointed inner monologue.
This show will be of supreme interest to audiophiles, radio producers, medical sociologists and anthropologists, doctors and nurses or in fact anyone looking to understand and form an empathetic bond with an acquired brain injury patient.
On the other hand, the experience is (by design) incredibly stressful and at times overwhelming, and could easily be too much for people who have lived through a traumatic medical episode, or who do not like confinement or prolonged sensory deprivation.
That said, the show is an achievement in terms of audio engineering but most importantly as a chance to understand from a lived experience perspective the multiple aspects of this kind of harrowing ordeal.
