LANDLINE largely takes its inspiration from a Situationist game called a possible rendezvous, an accidental meeting in a public place. In a possible rendezvous you make a telephone call to someone who gives you a random location for a meeting with a stranger. After you arrive you wait for the person to show up. The nature of the wait alters how you perceive the location you are in, and prompts you to engage with it differently. The possible rendezvous is taken as an elaborate metaphor, suggesting that a far-reaching yet intimate connection is, on some point of comparison, the same as a theatrical encounter.  

Audience members/participants arrive at a starting point, and are given an iPod and a headset. Each iPod is synched through a countdown in real time using a video chat. Once synched, the audio is in essence playing simultaneously over both headsets. The audio track contains a set of directions urging participants to drift through the city, conjuring a place thousands of miles away. The audio guide asks them to scout locations to become the backdrop for scenes, prompting them to text stories and memories to an address they received at the outset. A participant’s own mobile phone acts as a bridge between the two cities. When it comes time for interaction, for sharing text messages, the audio track prompts listeners to engage with their phone, and accommodates for response time. Since participants are asked to scout their own locations for scenes, there is no need to develop a guide or map for them to follow. An incoming text message completes the exchange, and the two strangers engage in dialogue.

Finally the spectators are guided back to home base in their own cities where they find a table set for two.  They sit down and discover the face of the stranger via video chat. In the final movement the city disappears, leaving two individuals — at once the performer and audience for the other — in a simple moment of bold theatrical intimacy. The success of this last moment depends on the participant’s ability to overcome the distance and to humanize the other, using technology for the purpose of bringing people closer together in the here and now.  

By establishing a carefully choreographed sequence of events, the project encourages people to enjoy a stroll together through an imaginary space, while the real cities move around them without notice.

LANDLINE intends to evoke the idea of a shared experience, to get people to discover similarities and differences between each other, and to see participation as a crucial part of global citizenship. Inspired by the playful idea of drifting around urban environments, the experience shared between two people makes the city come alive through public engagement. This is particularly important for theatre today because it reflects agency and inclusion, aspects that resonate with audiences on a personal level.