Play challenges audiences to look back at our own time

Anyone who goes to see the Guthrie Theater's latest production will have to imagine they are from another place and time.

With "Relics," the Guthrie presents a show that will make today's world a great mystery — one future visitors will try to unravel by examining items from a time of "wonders."

"The Ancients are a fascinating civilization that existed long before our own," intones the narrator.

The audience entering the Dowling Studio Theater for "Relics" will examine the wonders by walking around the theater during the performance. It is set in the year 2314 after "the Wipe Out," that destroyed all historical records.

Theatergoers will see artifacts accidentally discovered by an explorer who has since mysteriously disappeared.

"What was it really like to be an ancient?" the narrator continues in honeyed tones, even as he mispronounces the word "ancient."

"The magnificent temple and tomb of the holy one tells us one story," he says, "but look closer, and there is another one."

"Relics" is a show where ticket holders are advised to wear comfortable shoes. To fully appreciate the show, they'll be moving, director and performer Chantal Pavageux said.

"You may not be sitting down in a chair, and the lights may not go, and there may not be the turn off your cell phone announcement," she said. "But there are parts of it that feel more performative for sure. And then there are parts that are a little bit more free-form and a little bit more easy."

That makes "Relics" an immersive show, and part of a new trend that has taken hold in U.S. theaters in recent years. Audience members choose how they interact with the actors, the set — and "the wonders."

"The story is told to you through many different things," Pavageaux said. "It may be something you touch, or something you hear, something that you see. It's not just what the actors kind of present to you that gives you that story."

At an early evening rehearsal, the cast rummaged through a selection of "wonders" recently acquired at Goodwill.

"Will you make these into earrings for me?" Pavageaux asked the costumer, holding letters from a keyboard. "For the show?"

From household goods to clothing and gardening tools, the cast looked for ways to use things the wrong way. One actor cinched some underwear round his head to make a pretty scary mask.

"But I'm not the police officer torture person," he said.

"No, I am," said another actor, "But I wanted to see how it looked on you."

Sarah Agnew, one of the show's creators, said "Relics" has forced them to re-imagine contemporary life — and the use of everyday items like a staple remover or bottle of nail polish.

"You have to look at all the objects that you live with daily but imagine having never seen them and have no context for them and then making that up for a civilization that you are also creating," she said.

"Relics" didn't start as a stage show. Co-creator Nick Golfis, a visual artist who works in the Guthrie's props workshop, originally wanted to do a gallery exhibit.

"Trying to look at objects of today and what we would view in the future as relics of now," he said. "And things that we hold to be sacred and why they hold such a heightened state in our society."

From there the idea expanded into an immersive experience.

Since the success of "Sleep No More" on Broadway a few years ago where mask-wearing audience members wandered for up to three hours through what appeared to be a rundown hotel, immersive theater has taken off around the United States, Pavageaux said.

"Totally a trend," she said. "Absolutely. Everybody's doing it. Some are doing it better than others and hopefully we are on that side. Let's say that. Right?"

Audiences for each "Relics" show are limited to 80 people to maximize the experience. However because the production only lasts about an hour, the Guthrie has added late shows on several nights of the run.

The creators know they are playing to a Minnesota audience, where some people may just want to stay in their seat.

"So we have prepared for 'You don't want to play? Totally fine,'" Pavageaux said. "Watch everybody else play and you will have just as good of a time as if you wanted to eat one of the magic ambrosia cakes of the Ancients or get more involved in the exhibit."