I’m Not Playing is a rarity among the virtual Minnesota Fringe Festival offerings in that the video is very high quality. Clearly shot with an HD camera and very well lit. Unfortunately, like many Fringe offerings the audio is not great. I’m not sure if we are not supposed to hear what is happening at times or if sound has just been poorly captured. The installation is comprised of a single static shot, characters move in and out of frame. The story is about four roommates Dev, Jeremy, Jess and Caitlyn. Jeremy and Jess have just broken up the night before and the narrative is about the roommates efforts at facilitating Jeremy and Jess’s communication. The description says you can view it from a different POV which might help us to make sense of everything including long segments when nothing is happening on screen. If it can be viewed from different perspectives there must be a game to figuring out how to do it because it isn’t obvious or explained and I couldn’t figure it out. The POV I saw it from was “The Living Room” If there are indeed others like “the Bathroom” or “Jess’s Room” it might make the project more worthwhile. You definitely have the feeling you are missing something and you are not sure if this is one piece of a puzzle or if it’s just been inadequately produced.
As frustrated as I was by low and unintelligible dialogue when the presentation ended I went looking for other POV’s. That says something about what this group of performers presented. I suspect there are other cameras set up in different areas and the cast moves between them in real time so that you never have the full picture until you have seen all POV’s. That is a brilliant construct. The audio issues could be intentional because you’re not in the location where the dialogue is clear. If that is what’s happening here, then these are probably the first performers I’ve seen yet that figured out a way to do this virtual Fringe effectively, except of course the part where they maybe didn’t do that or did but didn’t make it clear how to see the other POV’s. I’d love to hear the answer to this question and if there are other POV’s, be pointed to them and I’ll gladly amend this review. At this point it’s a miss, with the feeling it might be a hit.
UPDATE: It’s a hit!!! Thanks to facebook comments from Derek Lee Miller, I was able to view the other POV’s and it was as I hoped, cameras set up in other locations all in real time. The trick to the viewing is that the Living Room is the only view available at the beginning, after it cuts from Jeremy’s instagram video other buttons appear above the video with other locations. Aside from the “Living Room” there is also “Dev’s Room” “Jess’ Room” “Whiteclaw” and “The Bathroom” which is the last room to become viewable. Once you’ve watched two or three you’ll be able to tell as you view the other rooms when you can slide the bar along and skip ahead. Put altogether I found this one of the most effective uses of the virtual experience. It probably owes more to film than it does theatre but it grabbed my attention and held my interest through five separate POV’s. the audio issues I mentioned earlier for the most part are eliminated by the different video streams, though the “Living Room” does have a sound issue in that a lot of Jeremy’s conversations you have to strain to make everything you should be catching.
The Stages of MN 
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