Image from the show Apollo 13 at Downstage Theatre
Photo by Domin­ika Ziel­in­ska

Two of our num­ber were lucky enough to (wo)man a con­sole each at mis­sion con­trol on the open­ing night of the new sea­son of Apollo 13: Mis­sion Con­trol at Down­stage Theatre. Kow­hai has an inter­im report before Robyn­’s com­plete report is pub­lished in the Cap­it­al Times.

Did Apollo 13: Mis­sion Con­trol do the busi­ness, flick my switches, get lift-off etc?

Yes, yes it did.

A great time was had at Down­stage bring­ing our boys home with the team at mis­sion con­trol as the press gal­lery observed from above clutch­ing their note­books (bloody media, always ask­ing the dif­fi­cult ques­tions…)

My com­pan­ion barely had time to grab this shot on her cam­era before we became immersed in our roles, guid­ing and nav­ig­at­ing the troubled Apollo 13 back home, enjoy­ing the pick-a-path unpre­dict­ab­il­ity of the audi­ence par­ti­cip­a­tion. You can book press or mis­sion con­trol seat­ing and will exper­i­ence the show dif­fer­ently depend­ing on which you pick, I cer­tainly enjoyed hav­ing the switches and knobs to play with.

Being drawn into immers­ive theatre com­plete with your own 70s flash­ing con­sole and space manu­al just works. There is just the right edge of fear and uncer­tainty with the rov­ing act­ors get­ting the audi­ence to guide, nav­ig­ate and prob­lem solve. We had a really good laugh and even lost the urge to twit­ter and cri­tique for an hour or so. I can see why this show had such a suc­cess­ful run last time with such a wide range of people really enjoy­ing them­selves, giv­ing them­selves over to the fantasy of space travel, and rock­ets, and being on a ‘Mis­sion’ with a cap­it­al M.  We saw quite a few fath­er and son com­bos hav­ing a jolly good time bond­ing over rock­ets and hero­ics.

This would make a super staff Christ­mas party activ­ity as it par­od­ies some of the dull aspects of work but makes you feel like team work is kind of hero­ic.

The sea­son goes until 18 Decem­ber and you can view a video pre­view and get all the times and prices on the Down­stage web­site.