Chongqing-Have you ever watched and participated in a drama in which all of the audience is engaged in the show? Citizens in Chongqing just experienced this interactive drama on the evening of April 12, when an immersive interactive gameshow called Ultimate Scam 2.0 made its debut in Chongqing Guotai Art Center, marking a new chapter for Chongqing-produced immersive dramas.
Professional actors and actresses playing the drama (photo/organization)
Ultimate Scam 2.0 is a story about cracking a criminal case. A burglary happens in Mahmud Khalil Museum, and an invaluable painting by Vincent Van Gogh is stolen. Meanwhile, there is a blast in the switching room of the museum, and a body is found on the scene. Finding the truth involves all audiences’ participation besides professional drama actors and actresses. In the form of role-playing, interactions, and games-playing, all audience members are engaged in deduction and investigation tactics to discover clues and find ultimate answers.
Audiences participating in the drama to track down the criminal (photo/organization)
The drama itself has applied a reversed montage. At the same time, suspense and foreshadowing are set in plots. Based on limited evidence and hints given by professional actors and actresses, audience members on the scene pool their wisdom and solve puzzles one by one. In some sense, audience members become leading actors who give an improvised show without a prepared script and push the story to reach peak after peak.
Audiences playing their roles on stage (photo/organization)
At the end of the drama, many audience members gave thumbs up to the creative drama, saying it’s very ingenious and impressive. Many young audience members even assimilated the drama as a LARP (Live Action Role Playing). They had many excited comments to share. “It seems I just played a LARP game in a theatre with professional actors. The feeling was so awesome!” said one excited attendee. “I could not imagine I can play LARP at Guotai Art Center one day,” said another. Relevant staff from the drama troupe said that Ultimate Scam 2.0 is a trial and innovation for immersive dramas of Chongqing. “We want to break the ‘wall’ and realize the ‘zero-distance’ interaction between actors and audiences. Audiences are not only in the drama but also decide the development of plots. We just hope the drama brings a brand-new experience to audiences in Chongqing.”
Ultimate Scam 2.0 will be staged at Chongqing Guotai Art Center until April 23. Then it will be staged at Fuling Theatre in June. According to the introduction, there will be different stories for each Ultimate Scam 2.0. Are you ready for the new Ultimate Scam?