Stage Notes: Suspicious Package: An iPod Noir

If you enjoy film noir, a good mystery book and interactive theater, Suspicious Package: An iPod Noirseems to have all three. It had a successful sold-out run in June and July as part of The Brick’s "The Film Festival: a Theater Festival," and is now returning for an open-ended run. I spoke by phone with co-creator Gyda Arber, a charming young woman, who, along with her mother Wendy Coyle (a film noir buff) created the script. A dozen actors created the parts on video for the flashbacks.

How would you explain what’s going to happen?
Basically, it’s an iPod noir. You show up at the theater. There are four audience members per show, and they are also the actors in the show. Each of them gets an iPod, which has a video, a voiceover, maps and dialogue to say.

Who are the characters they play?
There’s the heiress, the showgirl, the producer and the detective.

Does anybody watch?
No, there’s no other audience. Some people call up and say they don’t want to do it because they don’t want other people watching them act. But no one else watches you. You are audience and actor at the same time. You follow the instructions.

OK, so say I’m walking out the front door of the Brick with my iPod…
OK, you’re told to take a right and walk to the end of the street and go to a location. A map pops up to tell you where you’re going. Maybe when you get there you’re instructed to pick up a package from a woman behind the bar, or maybe you see another character and you walk up to that person and you have dialogue, and you say it.

And they have dialogue too, and so you do the scene with them?
Yes.

What about if the characters are played by people who are of a different sex?
We have two men and two women characters, but we’ve had men play women and women play the men with no problem.

OK, what’s the scenario?
The showgirl has been ill for several weeks, and the producer thinks she’s faking in order to get out of her contract, but maybe she’s being poisoned by someone else. So the detective is hired to find out what’s going on.

How long does it last?
45 minutes total. It’s very active. Afterwards, there’s a mini-cast party at a bar to talk it over.

How should you dress?
People have a little more fun if they dress up a little bit, but you don’t have to go all-out. One “producer” wore a suit and his girlfriend came in a ‘40s glamour dress.

Are there any props?
Each character gets a costume piece at the top of the show. The two men wear fedoras. The showgirl gets a boa and the heiress gets a vintage hat.

I’m assuming nothing bad happens to the characters.
[Laughs] It depends on your character.

The other 12 actors are all in the flashbacks?
Yes. They’re not live, only on video. There are video flashbacks on the iPod and that tells the story.

How many shows do you do each time?
Three a day is the most we can handle, because we work around the local businesses. We have to have people to be at a certain spot.

It sounds like fun.
Everyone who comes has a great time; to see four strangers start out with the four iPods, and at the end they all know each other and had so much fun.

The Brick Theater, 575 Metropolitan Ave., Williamsburg, Brooklyn, (212) 352-3101. Begins Aug. 2, open run, Sat. & Sun., every hour starting at 4 p.m. Reservations required. $20.