Nicholas Phillips presents Werewolves, an interactive show which is part-performance and part-interactive game with a pinch of Salem-like persecutions and mass hysteria thrown in for good measure.

The audience are invited to participate as villagers in a game of distrust and intrigue. Each person is given a character only known to themselves; villager, werewolf, and a few other traditional small town oddities. The village takes turns being slaughtered by werewolves in the night, and trying purge their town of this supernatural horror during the day with hysterical and blindly led lynchings.

Sitting in a circle, a macabre soundtrack plays in the distance as ringmaster Phillips plants seeds of doubt in the hearts of participants. Turning lovers against each other, and creating new sources of family turmoil; Nicholas guides the game’s interactions as a skilled and charming puppeteer.

You are alone, not knowing who is friend nor foe. Are you ready to kill and protect your own lycan kind? Can you handle being a martyr as other villagers turn against you, blind to your loud pleas of innocence? Is that sweet looking girl with glasses and a slight lisp sitting across from you an ancient creature hell-bent on destroying everyone you love? Is your partner of five years waiting until you fall asleep before tearing you limb from limb and rolling in your blood like a happy pupper in duck shit? Play the game, stay alive, and trust your instincts. No one is safe. You are alone.

A show that depends so much on audience interaction, that like a choose-your-own-adventure relies solely on the participants’ choices, paranoia and willingness to enter the village of Miller’s Hollow, is a hard one to give an outright rating.

But the world Mr Phillips weaves, and the calm omnipotent nature with which he delivers you to your fate is surely admirable by even Hades’ ferryman, Charon standards.

You need to use your head in this game of chance and skill, before you lose it.

When to go: a night that demands you take a flutter on the ponies. That need for the rush of chance overwhelms you. Or, alternatively, when in the mood to persecute other audience members.

Who to go with: family and partners. Test how well you know your loved ones. Embed suspicion in long term relationships – survive this and maybe marriage is an option.

See Werewolves (italics) at the Rhino Room, RCC, and other locations before it’s too late. Purchase tickets here before Miller’s Hollow is decimated by the horde.

4 Stars

By Grace Kungel