Theater, as an integrative art form, has historically embraced multidisciplinary approaches to engage its audience. By bridging traditional theatre and new interactive digital technologies, Tangible Theatre proposes a new configuration emphasising tangible experiences grounded in materiality and physicality. Key concepts such as production design, interaction design, and non-linear narratives are used to inform the development of Tanishqa’s physical artefacts. Through an iterative process, a tangible toolkit inspired by the narrative of Macbeth has been created, inviting participants to interact and assume the role of a performer, thus becoming their own spectacle.

I’m curious. Why did you choose to work with Macbeth?

I was talking to some of the theatre students in LASALLE and I got to know that the word Macbeth is a superstition or an omen for them. So, if they say the word Macbeth in their studio or their rehearsal space, something bad will happen. Since my idea is to remove the performers from the play, and you as participants become performers, I was thinking, since there are no performers in my play, what bad can happen? That's why I'm working with Macbeth.

What does your toolkit include?

My toolkit right now has three artefacts that are working with the play Macbeth. All of them have some sort of movement in it. I'm looking at movement and different theatrical techniques that you use in a production. The end goal is for me to have a toolkit which other designers or actors can use in their own productions and switch out my play, to use any working play, with the same mechanics or the design of it.

Could you briefly describe each of the artefacts and what that does?

All three of the artefacts references a particular scene from the play. My first artefact is called The Three Witches, which is basically an interactive painting. To give a bit of the context, it's the first scene where the three witches are making a plan for Macbeth. This is before they meet him and manipulate him, so they're cooking in front of their clay pot, mixing juices or whatever witchcraft they do. That's the scene I'm recreating in the play. When you touch the interactive painting, the mark-making extension moves, and you can make your own patterns. The idea is to make something of your own in a group, so the reference is there in that way.

Moving on to my second artefact Damnation, it references the scene where Lady Macbeth says “hell is murky”, acknowledging the fact that she's done enough bad in her life and she's gonna go to hell now. This artefact is my imagination of how she will behave when she's reached hell. When you see it, it's moving from the inside and from the outside. You feel like someone's trying to escape. She's either trying to escape or she's trying to scare you off. It could be your own interpretation.

Then we move on to my third artefact, which is called The Anatomy of a Play. While I'm referencing the play itself, I'm also looking at the technicalities of a production. This includes kinetic movement, how sound is incorporated in a play and all that. To be a bit more metaphorical, the scene that I'm referencing is where the good characters of the play Banquo and Duncan show their loyalty and honesty within the play. Because I'm working with so much heavy imagery and darkness, I wanted to show the contrast between the good and evil that exists in the play. That's why I'm working with shadows and a lighter colour palette. Just like how you appreciate a play and you clap, I'm working with clap as my input right now. I would also have multiple iterations of it later, but for my first experiment, I thought maybe I could use some theatrical etiquette and the production of it in this.