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Playification of Theatre: Game Play, Ludic Activities and Being Playful in The Great Gatsby: An Immersive Theatrical Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2025

JIHAY PARK
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Abstract

My examination of game play, ludic activity and being playful in immersive Gatsby shows that Gatsby is a typical example of the playification of theatre in the contemporary art scene. In using the term ‘playification’, I refer to the method of incorporating diverse play categories in theatre to motivate audience activity. While much critical attention has been devoted to the controversial nature of active spectating as a practice of audience emancipation, there has been relatively less focus on its play aspect. To develop an understanding of the idea of play in immersive theatre, I refer to the works of Johan Huizinga and Richard Schechner, and apply Schechner's language, which distinguishes play and game in immersive theatre. Moreover, in developing Schechner's vocabulary in the context of immersive theatre, I expand my scope of reference to include the insights of game theorists.

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Article
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Theatre Research International , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , March 2025 , pp. 18 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Federation for Theatre Research

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References

Notes

1 McKenzie, Jon, ‘Virtual Reality: Performance, Immersion and the Thaw’, Drama Review, 38, 4 (1994), pp. 83–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moser, Mary Anne and Macleod, Douglas, Immersed in Technology: Art and Virtual Environments (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fuchs, Philippe and Guitton, Pascal, ‘Introduction to Virtual Reality’, in Fuchs, Philippe, Moreau, Guillaume and Guitton, Pascal, eds., Virtual Reality: Concepts and Technologies (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2011), pp. 3–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Carlson, Marvin, ‘Immersive Theatre and the Reception Process’, Forum Modernes Theater, 27, 1 (2012), pp. 17–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bloom, Gina, Gaming the Stage: Playable Media and the Rise of English Commercial Theater (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018), p. 13Google Scholar; Schulze, Daniel, Authenticity in Contemporary Theatre and Performance (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), pp. 127–87Google Scholar; Charlotte Higgins, ‘Immersive Theatre: Tired and Hackneyed Already?’, The Guardian, 7 December 2009, at www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2009/dec/07/theatre-punchdrunk (accessed 1 June 2022).

3 Schulze, Authenticity, p. 129.

4 Machon, Josephine, (Syn)aesthetics: Redefining Visceral Performance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Biggin, Rose, Immersive Theatre and Audience Experience (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 157–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 See www.blasttheory.co.uk/projects/can-you-see-me-now.

7 See https://immersivegatsby.com/event/the-great-gatsby#faq.

8 Alexander Wright, ‘Invitation to the Mansion’, All That Art, 20 November 2019, at https://post.naver.com/viewer/postView.naver?volumeNo=26912146&memberNo=37451778&vType=VERTICAL (accessed 1 June 2022)

9 Huizinga, Johan, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949), p. 11Google Scholar.

10 Schechner, Richard, Performance Theory (New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 13CrossRefGoogle Scholar, original emphasis.

11 ‘Gamification’, Lexico, at www.lexico.com/definition/gamification (accessed 1 June 2022).

12 Sebastian Deterding, Dan Dixon, Rilla Khaled and Lennart Nacke, ‘From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining Gamification’, in Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments, Tampere, Finland, 28–30 September 2011, at https://doi.org/10.1145/2181037.2181040 (accessed 1 June 2022), p. 1.

13 Ibid., p. 13.

14 Carlson, ‘Immersive Theatre and the Reception Process’, p. 24.

15 Ibid.

16 Rosemary Klich, ‘Playing a Punchdrunk Game: Immersive Theatre and Videogaming’, in James Friez, ed., Reframing Immersive Theatre: The Politics and Pragmatics of Participatory Performance (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); Gareth White, ‘On Immersive Theatre', Theatre Research International, 37, 3 (2012), pp. 221–35; Gareth White, Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Rose Biggin, Immersive Theatre and Audience Experience.

17 Huizinga, Homo Ludens, p. 1.

18 Ibid., p. 3.

19 Ibid., p. 13, added emphasis.

20 Ibid., pp. 10–11.

21 Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games (London: Thames and Hudson, 1962), pp. 9–10.

22 Bernard Suits, Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia (Boston: David R. Godine, 1990), pp. 34–41.

23 Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), p. 80.

24 Schechner, Performance Theory, p. 99, original emphasis.

25 Ibid., pp. 104–7.

26 Ibid., pp. 103–7.

27 Ibid., p. 69.

28 Ibid., p. 71.

29 Huizinga, Homo Ludens, p. 10.

30 Schechner, Performance Theory, p. 98.

31 Huizinga, Homo Ludens, pp. 13, 37, original emphasis.

32 Chris Crawford, The Art of Computer Game Design (Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, 1997), p. 3, at www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html (accessed 1 June 2022).

33 Schechner, Performance Theory, p. 15.

34 David Parlett, The Oxford History of Board Games (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 3.

35 Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play, p. 80.

36 Huizinga, Homo Ludens, p. 1.

37 Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play, p. 286.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis (Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1986), p. 247.

42 Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play, p. 80; Jesper Juul, Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), p. 9.

43 Juul, Half-Real, pp. 18–19.

44 Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play, p. 287.

45 Schechner, Performance Theory, pp. 107–10.

46 Ibid., p. 15.

47 Ibid., original emphasis.

48 Ibid., pp. 15–18.

49 Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play, p. 286.

50 Richard Bartle, ‘Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDS’, at www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.html (accessed 1 June 2022).

51 Huizinga, Homo Ludens, p. 1.

52 Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play, p. 34.

53 Caillois, Man, Play, and Games, p. 19.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid., p. 14.

56 Schechner, Performance Theory, p. 18.

57 Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play, p. 287, original emphasis.

58 Ian Bogost, Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games (New York: Basic Books, 2016), p. 2.

59 Caillois, Man, Play, and Games, p. 19.

60 Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play, p. 287, original emphasis.

61 Ibid.

62 Caillois, Man, Play, and Games, p. 23.

63 Ibid., pp. 23–6.

64 Salen and Zimmerman, Rules of Play, p. 287.

65 Klich, ‘Playing a Punchdrunk Game’, pp. 221–8; Biggin, Immersive Theatre and Audience Experience.

66 Josephine Machon, Immersive Theatres: Intimacy and Immediacy in Contemporary Performance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Klich, ‘Playing a Punchdrunk Game’, pp. 221–8; Biggin, Immersive Theatre and Audience Experience.

67 Schechner, Performance Theory, p. 15.