{"id":8480,"date":"2017-11-13T00:49:21","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T08:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/Becomeimmersed.com\/?p=8480"},"modified":"2019-11-20T12:06:17","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T20:06:17","slug":"caught-think-tank-truth-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/caught-think-tank-truth-art\/","title":{"rendered":"“Caught” Explores Art and Truth Through an Immersive Lens"},"content":{"rendered":"

How do we interpret the truth? Is it a collection of assumptions, known facts, and lies agreed upon? Would we know a lie if we saw it, or would our minds interpret it as truth in the context of our moral obligation to believe it? \u00a0 <\/span>Does wanting<\/i> to believe something make a lie more plausible, and is the impact of a story negated if it lacks truthfulness?<\/span><\/p>\n

Christopher Chen\u2019s<\/a> Caught<\/i>, presented by Think Tank Gallery<\/a> in collaboration with Firefly Theater & Films<\/a> and Vs. Theatre<\/a>, seeks to probe at the validity of narrative storytelling as it is made murky, submerged by an ever-increasing series of false paths. Chen\u2019s words, when scattered throughout the innovative medium of immersive theatre, swirl into a wildly entertaining and often comedic study of truth, lies and the danger of belief.\u00a0 <\/span>The story begins, changes, shifts and turns, confuses and delights, and, most importantly, never quite ends.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Caught,
Lin Bo (Louis Changchien) gives his gallery talk to audience members in CAUGHT.
Photo Credit: Vincent Madero<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We enter Think Tank Gallery in Los Angeles to attend District 798, an art exhibit from China\u2019s Xiong Collective, combined with a special presentation by Lin Bo (Louis Changchien), the Chinese dissident imprisoned for two years in Detention Center 7.\u00a0 <\/span>He describes the horror of his captivity in the name of political protest art. Bo\u2019s story is captivating, devastating, and compelling. He finishes his speech to stunned applause; but the curtains throughout the space literally and figuratively are pulled back to reveal the truth beneath the surface of his tale.\u00a0 <\/span>But it doesn\u2019t end there; more layers continue to be uncovered, a Russian nesting doll of conflicting narratives.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the most compelling and remarkable aspects of this piece is its brilliant execution. Director Ed Sylvanus Iskandar leads a truly skilled cast featuring Louis Changchien, Jackie Chung, Jessica Kaye and Steven Klein through a world class set by designer Stephen Gifford.\u00a0 <\/span>The audience is pulled through a journey to discover whose story is actually being told\u2014without a real hope of an answer. But that is the genuine appeal of Chen\u2019s Obie award winning play<\/a>: the truth in Caught<\/i> is sought after, yet irrelevant; tangible, yet unreachable; a clever undermining of traditional theater and how easily audiences accept a performance as the genuine product.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s beyond refreshing to see a subversive and thought-provoking narrative so successfully transitioned to an immersive setting.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Truth,
Caption: Lin Bo (Louis Changchien) and Wang Min (Jackie Chung) in Caught.
Photo Credit: Vincent Madero<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Christopher Chen has done something remarkable: instilling an agency within his characters to subvert their own narrative and turn the entire story on its head.\u00a0 <\/span>That agency is perhaps why this play translates so well to immersive theatre.\u00a0 <\/span>Where before the standard was to create a space where audiences feel their personal decisions alter a narrative, in Caught<\/i> the narrative is already in flux, and continues to reveal additional layers that spin away from participants in a delirious and exciting storm. We play witness to a truth that is actively stretched, interpreted, and altered to suit who is presenting it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Caught <\/i>expertly achieves a harmonious blend of razor sharp comedy and intellectual discourse on the meaning of art and performance as a whole.\u00a0 <\/span>The brilliant cast further blurs the line between audience and performer with their commitment to the multi-faceted narrative. Chen\u2019s work provides a diatribe on art and how it can defy interpretation; a story that extends without termination. That\u2019s the thing about a tale told right: it lingers on with it\u2019s audience; it never needs <\/i>to end.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tickets for\u00a0Caught\u00a0<\/em>can be purchased\u00a0here.<\/a>\u00a0For more information please visit Think Tank’s website<\/a>, or follow them on\u00a0Instagram\u00a0<\/a>or Facebook.<\/a>\u00a0More information on the dissident Xiong Collective is available at this link.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How do we interpret the truth? Is it a collection of assumptions, known facts, and lies agreed upon? Would we know a lie if we saw it, or would our minds interpret it as truth in the context of our moral obligation to believe it? \u00a0 Does wanting to believe something make a lie more…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":8483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1951,80],"tags":[104,7701,7700,7703,29,7124,7702,7699,4510],"yst_prominent_words":[7707,7705,7689,7713,7711,3785,7714,7708,7706,7704,7687,295,3251,7712,7710,1188,7688,5179,7715,7697],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/CAUGHTScene2-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrPML-2cM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8480"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8480"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/becomeimmersed.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}