Immersive Theatre

© Ayr/Gray

The Unicorn Challenge.

A magical new weekly writing opportunity from him – C. E. Ayr – and me.
The rules are
Maximum of 250 words.
Based on photo prompt.
That’s it.

Click here to read other stories from the prompt: 22/03/24

Immersive Theatre

The theatre is in darkness.
A soft, dismal melody begins.
From the wings a figure appears.
He reaches the centre of the stage, crouches down, head in hands.
And waits…
A spotlight picks out his red shirt.

There is no fourth wall.
To take the play forward, some-one from the audience must react.
A woman stands, makes her way down the aisle.
The beat of the music, stronger now, accompanies her.
She climbs onto the stage.
Recognition flickers – he seems to hesitate.
But she takes him gently by the hands, lifting him to his feet.
Round and round they dance, the music growing more and more frenetic.
As it crescendos, she pulls him from the stage, down through the audience and out of the theatre.
She runs with him towards the setting sun and the fading music.
A cinema screen, lit up now behind the empty stage, follows them.
Speaking in strange tongues, the audience crouch down in their seats, their heads in their hands.
The soft, dismal melody plays again, fades with the light, leaving only the vibration of the last note.

Next morning the audience, early-morning dog-walkers now, spy an unusual patch of red at the foot of the distant cliff.
They hurry to the scene, find the broken body of a man lying spreadeagled across the rocks.
He is clad in a blood-red shirt.
From the top of the cliff a woman’s voice, fading into the distance, sings the opening melody of the play.