“There are different type of audiences, and they all will come with a different intention. Some won’t want to interact at all. They just want to listen to a story, be guided. Some people are actually seeking to do stuff. And all of them are beautiful.”
Vinicius Salles recognises that interactivity can come in many forms, and that audiences may want to interact with this type of work in different ways. In his new show, The Shop for Mortals and Fools, he creates an experience that may be small in size, but is generous in its ambition to accommodate and engage the audience in so many different ways. We welcome him into the Voidspace to talk about the show, the joys and challenges of self-producing, and what wrapping an audience in police tape taught him about the art of connection.
Voidspace:
Hi, Vini. Welcome back to the Voidspace. You are a definite friend of the Void. It’s lovely to see you again.
Vinicius Sallles:
Thank you for having me. Thank you for supporting independent artists and independent immersive experiences for people that are trying to create something around this area and trying to experiment. Because I think it’s a lot about experimentation, right?
Voidspace:
It’s a total pleasure. I’d love to ask you a bit about that journey into independent creation in a minute.
Of course, we’ve talked about your work before. We’ve talked about your work with Punchdrunk and your role as Agamemnon in The Burnt City. We were talking back in late 2023 about the R&D work that you were doing at the time.
Now, we are back to talk about your latest project, The Shop of Mortals and Fools, that is coming to Stanley Arts at Kingswood House in February. I would love you to start by giving me a brief overview of what that’s going to be.
Vinicius Sallles:
It’s quite hard for me to give an overview, but the basics of the Shop is to start with the story that I wrote, a version of The Bacchae. When I read the text for the first time, there was a character, Agave, the mother. She just comes in at the end of the play, and she just does what the Bacchae wanted. She killed her son, and she’s punished in a way that nobody there in the city was. Punished by exile.
And I thought it’d be interesting to look at things from her point of view. Because the play is about the male identities, the king and the Bacchae – how they represent something in opposition – she comes in the middle of that. But I wondered how I could actually give a voice to her. How would it be, telling that story? That was the beginning. And then, of course, being queer, I looked at queer theory and picked up a lot of feminist ideas. I was very interested somehow to show that element of it.
So I started writing it, and I read a mix of Portuguese sources and lots of other things. Then I applied for a grant to stage it at a festival. And I said, “shit! now I need to translate everything into English!”
But the concept of the Shop itself came with Agave because she’s in exile, and I thought about how she would tell that story.
And then there’s something else: I cannot tell you exactly, because it’s important for the play. There is this object that she kills her son with. I was very interested in the idea because getting older, I think that everything is very ephemeral. It’s like a little fire. You light it, and it’s gone. I thought it’d be quite interesting if she worked in a shop. My first thought was a second-hand shop, so each object would have a story, a past, and through those, she would start telling her own personal story.
Voidspace:
I love that so much, and I love the fact that you’re taking the female point view. And I love the idea of taking artefacts and giving them a story. I feel like theatre is so ephemeral, and there’s always that sense that even as you’re watching a show, time is passing as you’re watching it. I think it’s why so many people would come back to Punchdrunk shows again and again. To try to fix that ephemeral moment in time.
Vinicius Sallles:
When I started to actually make and produce the show, the narrative of the Shop itself became as strong as the narrative of the shopkeeper, and how those two somehow would merge. I wanted the shop to be a real shop. The first plan was to do it in a central shopping centre in Croydon, but after long negotiations we ended up not doing that. So I said, “Stanley Arts! Help me!”
Voidspace:
It’s so hard, isn’t it? The push-pull between the vision and the practicality of actually making it happen.
Vinicius Sallles:
That was for me the learning curve of producing it.
But thinking about what you said about the artefact. The idea is to have a real shop that people can actually buy stuff and take. The shop is going to give a presence to people, but it’s all about stories, narratives, and things around that. There are four artists that are going to be exhibiting art, paintings and objects, but all tied up with the idea of a feminist view. There are two sets of artefacts. One set of artefacts form a permanent collection, seven of them. And the other is this collection that comes and goes with artists who are local to wherever the show is being staged.
For this one, there is almost like a game between the audience, and then they’re going to have a nice catalogue of objects.
Voidspace:
It sounds like the audience are going to be interacting with the characters, but also as much with the objects and the shop.
Vinicius Sallles:
Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to create. Somehow the objects have their own narrative, but connected with the story of the shopkeeper because, of course, the shop is hers, it’s her outer ego. One of the debates for me about how to design the shop was around that. Do I do a proper second-hand shop? Or was it something that we actually can be more experimental with, in terms of her inner self or as an extension of her inner unconscious mind.
Voidspace:
You can choose to either make it very concrete, like Bagpuss or something, or to make it super abstract and a lot more metaphorical.
Vinicius Sallles:
Exactly. I think there’ll be a little bit of mix around that. Because my big question about interaction is how we can keep the story but at the same time give other possibilities for the audience to experience that shop as a real thing.
Because it’s almost like a one-on-one with 10 people. Therefore, if from these one-on-ones, they discover something for the show, you have a special scene in the end and you can get this little prize or token that you can take home from the shop.
Voidspace:
It sounds like a real balance between the very intimate and the wider experience, but also in a way that you could actually make work.
Vinicius Sallles:
That’s what I’m trying to do. So hopefully that will be achieved by how we can keep a narrative in terms of a performance. There are different type of audiences, and they all will come with a different intention. Some won’t want to interact at all. They just want to listen to a story, be guided. Some people are actually seeking to do stuff. And all of them are beautiful. I would love to be able to somehow support all those experiences throughout the performance.
Voidspace:
I’ve noticed, having talked and thought and written about all these different shows, that interactive work often falls into different categories. You’ve got your environmental interaction: exploring. You’ve got your almost game-like interaction: doing things that are going to have an outcome. You’ve got the sort of interaction which might not change the story, but changes how you feel about the emotional impact of it.
Often a show will manage to do one or two of those things and do it well. But often people who make those shows – for understandable reasons! – think of one type of interaction as “more interactive” than another. So they will focus on their favoured type .
I love the idea of a show being made by someone who values and understands all of those different kinds of engagement. To see something that makes space for all of them is very exciting.
Vinicius Sallles:
This is a very small scale, but very intimate, but hopefully very personal. And, at the same time, there is the possibility for people to engage with the piece in a different way.
Voidspace:
The advantage of a smaller scale piece is that as a performer, you can be so much more responsive to what’s in front of you, with the audience. With a big show, you have to run on loops or tracks, and for the sake of scale, it has to be done in a certain way. Is there an advantage sometimes to doing this work on a smaller scale?
Vinicius Sallles:
It is something that I’m interested in, art as a connection. I feel when you are on a big scale, sometimes you lose some personal connection. I did a very experimental piece called No Contact, this dance around people who just share the space with us. When the first audience arrived in the space, I put on heavy metal, and I was performing with a friend of mine, and we got this black and yellow police tape. We put everybody in the centre of the space, then we wrapped the audience with that tape.
Voidspace:
Oh, my goodness!
Vinicius Sallles:
And then slowly the lights come down, down, down, down, down. That feeling when you are on the Underground and you’re just touching people that you don’t know. I love that sensation because that reflects a lot about what contact and connections that somehow we are after or experience, but we’re not really connecting with what they mean, how we break those things, and how we become more human, or not. I feel it translated to this place. We’re not using this at all in the current show, but I think it’s that sense of experience we’re going for.
I think 10 people together with the shopkeeper in this very secluded space, is very intimate. She’s going to tell you something very fucking intimate about herself. I’m working with performer Kate Webster, and she is phenomenal. Because there is this proximity with someone that is talking about the tragic things in her life, laughing and dancing and partying, and we’re serving wine. So it’s very intense. You’re sharing that intense experience together.
Voidspace:
You’re not behind a mask. You’re not just pretending it’s just for you. You’re all in that together.
Vinicius Sallles:
Absolutely. She talks to the audience, asks them to do things, and they play a little game with her about this object. They’re going to have to choose one to try to find where this hidden coin of Sybil is. We talk a lot, in the show, about this goddess. She was the goddess before Bacchus existed. She’s the goddess of fertility, the mother. In ancient times, she was very fat: big tits, a very voluptuous body. The show has so many layers and levels and hopefully funny moments as well.
Voidspace:
It’s so exciting to get to balance all of those energies in the room because it will be different each time.
Vinicius Sallles:
I’m trying to talk with a technician, about how we can actually put a camera in. It has to be safe as well.
Voidspace:
That’s really important. I think that’s so good that even on a shoestring budget, you can find a way of ensuring that safety. It’s one of the things that I think is so important: that we think about safety and accessibility.
Vinicius Sallles:
Because if it’s about experience, does experience mean money and production? So I think if I’m trying to create a political system or trying to say something or trying to make people think something, I think that for me, I cannot rely on a big budget, and it’s possible, and I’m doing it.
Voidspace:
It’s so hard when you’re trying for the money and the budget and it doesn’t come. But you’re right, though. I do think that sometimes maybe it’s easy to rely on spectacle or experience, but actually the heart of what makes this work is when you’ve got that core of telling a story. The emotion and the story all tied up together.
My huge thing, especially as I run a festival in Theatre Deli, which has very little tech and very limited space for a set of any sort. My huge thing is that if you’ve got the connection and you’ve got the story that is the core of what makes this work good. It’s not about the set.
Vinicius Sallles:
I think for me, it’s the most important thing you can have. We can have theatre without light, you can have a theatre without music. You can even have theatre without a script, because it’s that essence that matters. I wanted two other actresses , because I think I wanted each session to be done with a different actress playing. But unfortunately, I didn’t get the funds. So I have one, and Kate is amazing: she’s going to be doing five shows a day.
Voidspace:
The grind is real.
Vinicius Sallles:
It’s hard for her, especially because it’s emotionally driven for her. But we’re going to have 40 minutes break in between each show, so she can rest. I was very grateful to have this funding to do the show at Stanley Arts, but I had to have a strong actress to be able to do it. If I have that, that’s my core.
For me, creativity is finding solutions to problems. I think that’s what I have been doing. For me, it was very important to talk to the sound engineer because I wanted some voices in the space. But I don’t want to see speakers, because I want it to be a real shop. And they said, they have big speakers. But I don’t want to see those. So how can we figure out those things?
Voidspace:
It’s great that you’re finding those solutions. It’s very exciting.
I just think it’s really interesting that you’ve made a show based on The Bacchae, and this seems to be a very popular show to be adapted in different ways by immersive and interactive theatre makers. The story draws people to it.
Vinicius Sallles:
I found it a very interesting story and I think it offers a lot in terms of theatrical elements. If you think about human life, the human experience, there’s lots in there. Using this text, I really didn’t follow any trend at all. It was so personal to me. I started writing it three years ago.
Voidspace:
I just think it’s so interesting that these stories are so powerful. You’ve got your very personal interpretation and the feminist side and looking at the woman’s story, which is totally different from anything else that I’ve seen.
Vinicius Sallles:
For me, it was the most difficult thing because I wanted to write a story about this woman. I want to put words in the mouth of this woman, but I’m not a woman. And I think, how can I, as a male, even being queer, how can I write a story about a woman?
I sent it to five women – friends, writers, poets – to read and give feedback. That feedback for me was so important. There’s lots of personal things in it, but it was important for the text to have females contribute to that narrative, to create, hopefully, a character that somehow is strong, not only because Kate is going to embody it in such a beautiful way. But because I think the words somehow have to come from a place of ownership.
Voidspace:
You’re starting on this very exciting self-production journey. Is there anything that you would like to see happen next?
Vinicius Sallles:
I think this is a great project for me in that sense, especially to actually tap into making stuff. Some objects I made, the design, the marketing. I’m happy to do all of these things. I feel this gave me a bit of security, especially in production, because I feel that I want to produce. I think the next thing I would like to do now is to try to produce something that’s not mine.
I don’t think there is a book that I learned this in, but I learned because it’s how I would put myself out there. There are lots of things that are very exposing. When I started to promote this, I felt like I was naked. But I’ve been pushing myself. I’m respecting my boundaries, my limits, my anxiety. My mood is really affected by it. But I really respect being able to make it because one of the things I love is writing. I always wrote when I was back in Brazil, but I stopped when I came here, to the UK. And suddenly it’s become this thing that wakes me up in the morning at 6am. I absolutely love it.
I have three projects in the pipeline. I’m just dying to finish this first. I really hope that the Shop carries on and arrives in other places. I want to, hopefully, take it to Central London. I think that’s the next stage. I’m looking for spaces. If anyone reading this interview knows of any shop, anything that could make a shop or be transformed into one, please let me know.
Voidspace:
I’m looking forward to seeing the first stage of this project. It sounds like you’ve had a lot of creative challenges, but also a period of creative growth and awakening as well. And I can’t wait to see what comes next.