The red boxes (formally “the babyboxes”) are more than boxes that are red! They are small self-contained booth ‘stages’ mounted ontop handbuilt Pashley Loadstar tricycles.
The idea is fairly simple. 4 specially built mini 'box' installations mounted onto tricycles, wherein short performances/installations (generated from various collaborations) are presented. They have integrated lighting and sound and can be moving or static installations. Once onsite they set up and play back to back in 1 hour shifts to audiences between 2 and 8 (other audiences can gather and watch from a distance, though to get the full experience they should take a seat in front of the booths).
Presently, each performance is approximately 5 minute long (the entire show is 25 minutes) and runs back-to-back, rotating audiences, but some shows can be longer. Each show is unique in style, and form, integrating and employing a range of different disciplines, media and devices - so perhaps you have a ‘talking head/performer-in-a-box’ in one instance, but you might also have film, or puppetry, or 'dance', sound or sculpture in others.
La Boîte Noire is the first set of shows developed for the red boxes. A pulp thriller of minuscule proportions. Experience a murder mystery across four performances in our unique Red Box theatre installations. A single story with multiple narratives for small audiences - watch in any order and let the tale unfold.
Charlie's wound up dead, and the poor sucker never saw it coming. Was it the wife? The mistress? The driver who saw him last? Watch all four stories and help piece together the clues of Charlies demise. Influenced by 1940's Film Noir, these new and original devised shows are for two people at a time and performed in small, intimate and most importantly mobile theatres!
Devised and performed by: Lily Beck, Laura Bern, Bethan Coundley, Ellis Seamons and John Woodburn
View my website http://www.bootworkstheatre.co.uk/bootworks/other_work/Entries/2011/3/22_the_red_box.html