Deliverance

“★★★★ Where a big chunk of lockdown theatre has treated isolation as a problem, this one sees it as an asset. Sigfúsdóttir’s script makes you focus on yourself, your sexuality and your engagement with the world. It’s like a mindfulness exercise crossed with a dressing-up-box game, one that turns you into protagonist, antagonist and observer. It is theatre as me time.

Anyone living with you must duck out of the way as you buzz from room to room, going at your own pace through a series of tasks which, because of the context, become elevated from the everyday to the archetypal. I went from computer-weary to radiant. At the end, I felt taller.”

“What Deliverance does, in essence, is to switch theatrical attention away from the screen, towards the other great boom industry of lockdown, the home delivery; so that when audience members find the event online, and buy a ticket for a specific time, they will be sent a delivery slot, during which they should expect a small package to arrive at their door. The package will contain a message, a few instructions, and a promise of a phone call; and from that moment, apart from the voice of the caller, you will perform your version of Deliverance alone in your home, allowing the thoughts in the message to shape your life for an hour or two, as you would in the theatre.
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“★★★★ Deliverance is essentially a script, delivered to your door during a specified time slot. Once you open the envelope containing it, your performance starts. Over the next 90mins or so, you are asked to perform several tasks. Think of a picture of yourself as a child. Put a song on that makes you feel happy. Take a shower and sing along.

And, as you go, the script prompts you to ask questions about yourself. Do you feel confident? Do you feel sexy? Do you like being you? At one point, you are asked to phone a number, and the person at the other end asks you about your childhood dreams.

Every ’performance’ of Deliverance will be different – different protagonists, in different homes, listening to different songs, thinking different thoughts. But at its heart, it is an imaginative exercise in self-knowledge and self-love. The questions it asks are the same ones that lurk at the edge of our consciousness every day. Deliverance has the temerity to ask you them outright.”