Presented by DARKFIELD

Review by Hunter King

Darkfield COMA at Assembly George Square

Fringe staple, DARKFIELD have returned with a selection of their audio driven dark room shows; this year bringing FLIGHT, ARCADE, and COMA. In Coma, audience members are laid onto freshly sterilized plastic hospital beds before the lights go out.

Sitting next to your bed is your medication, which seemingly will put you into a coma, despite the consistent reassurance from the disembodied voice over the loudspeaker claiming that it will do nothing. Unlike the other DARKFIELD shows, COMA has less of a straightforward plot, relying more on the ambiance of laying down and feeling unable to move.

Somehow, DARKFIELD manages to make an experience that leaves audience members feeling paralyzed, genuinely making them feel as if they are unable to move even though the performance itself is only an audio recording. While their other productions have a focus on pinpointing things that may cause anxiety in their audiences, such as flying or the horrors of war, coma becomes more of a machine for dissociation. 

DARKFIELD always knows how to make audiences squirm, but in this case the show finds moments of horror, focusing more on the implications of the real life consequences of being comatose than the more straightforward counterparts in the other DARKFIELD shipping containers. In this way COMA leaves a lasting impression, poking a different part of the mind than DARKFIELD is used to.

COMA is a truly one of a kind experience, providing Fringe audiences with a living nightmare that will make them think, overthink, and eventually rethink their decisions that brought them to DARKFIELD in the first place. With that said, the experience is one that absolutely shouldn’t be missed and well worth the time to experience.

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