Review: Invincible

The year is 2048, and scepticism towards synthetic biology is widely regarded in the same way that the anti-vaccination movement is today.

A commercial ‘synbio’ solution called Invincible has exploded onto the market, helping thousands of people level out their feelings. This over-the-counter emotional resilience makes them less sentimental and more high-achieving – but is it okay to chemically suppress our emotions until we feel nearly nothing at all?

This is the topical premise of the immersive theatre show Invincible, written in collaboration with playwright David Lane, produced by Bath theatrical pioneers Kilter, and back in Bristol for the weekend at a secret location in Clifton. The show follows the story of three women: the grandmother who invented Invincible, the mother who resists it, and the daughter who underwent the procedure without her mother’s knowledge.

The script never makes wholly clear what exactly Invincible is supposed to protect you against. By not clarifying whether it is an anti-depressant or a nootropic, as in the film Limitless, the production does not discern much between how you feel after a break-up and how you feel when suffering from clinical depression – and the two are quite different, as those who have experienced both will testify.

But the story twists and turns around mental health, self-improvement and family deceit in a way that forces the audience to grapple with ever more difficult moral and ethical questions as new information comes to light. And answer them they must – there are scientists in lab coats which take note of their answers before the next scene begins, meaning they must engage with the topic at hand and take a stance on every complex issue thrown at them.

This interactive element worked well, but the show did unfortunately feel like immersive theatre for the sake of it. Unlike in other immersive productions where the audience’s movement through the space is an essential component of the story, here it functioned only as a means of breaking up scenes. The show might therefore have benefited from being in a regular, old, untrendy theatre – as the focus would have stayed on the story, rather than on tro0ping around a small flat.

Fascinatingly, though, Invincible was developed in collaboration with the University of Bristol’s BrisSynBio research centre, which claims to be a world leader in its field. Unknown to the audience until the very end, what were presumed to be actors in white lab coats turned out to be actual scientists from BrisSynBio – scientists masquerading as actors masquerading as scientists, if you will.

All the audience’s answers about issues around synthetic biology over the course of the show’s run will be recorded by real-life researchers at the forefront of that exact field, and discussed at a later date at an event at the research centre.

This gave the experience the rare sense that something tangible would come of your being there; that it was part of a wider conversation which we must all participate in.

Invincible March 15-18, secret location, Bristol. For more info, visit www.kiltertheatre.org

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