Truthmachine theatre review: Immersive, disturbing dystopia
The tech-powered experience creates a sinister, unsettling alternate reality through chilling sound effects and earth-shattering twists
Welcome to the interrogation chamber. In an era drowning in post-truth cynicism, Counterpilot’s Truthmachine drags a group of test subjects into a darkly lit, high-tech crucible to measure the ultimate currency: honesty.
Created by Nathan Sibthorpe, this 30-minute immersive experiment equips participants with headphones, sleek LED dials and a dossier of classified instructions. After a battery of preliminary queries calibrates the room’s nervous tension, one unfortuitous participant is selected for the hot seat. Strapped into a polygraph measuring biofeedback, they are grilled on (very) intimate affairs while the rest of us play human lie-detector. The goal? Well, that’s where it gets clouded.
Technically, the production is a marvel. The orchestration of soundscapes, software and sinister aesthetic cues creates a claustrophobic, techno-dystopian atmosphere. While the experience relies heavily on the central subject’s willingness to play along, a sharp, unsettling narrative twist attempts to dismantle the illusion of objective reality; and here is the moment the immersive show might lose folk, as Sibthorpe pushes the existential scope.
Immersive Fringe theatre often struggles to bridge technical gimmicks with substance, but this unsettling trial succeeds. It leaves you questioning not just the data or politicians, but the secrets of the stranger sitting beside you.
Truthmachine, C Alto, until 30 August, times vary; picture: Kate O'Sullivan.