Since establishing The Base, The Outlore, Cape Town’s ‘only immersive theatre group’, has welcomed many artists and communities to its home ground. Hesitant at first about this unusual venue and its offering, but nevertheless returning a second or third time, people have fallen in love with The Base and are eagerly asking what else happens here? For founders Liam Gillespie and Kim Buckle, the goal is more creating, more networking and more community. By attending one performance or show, audiences are discovering others and crossing over between them.

Artists seen on stage the previous night, are seated in the audience to support their peers the next night. Most importantly, perhaps, budding or contemplating creatives sitting in the audience are being inspired by the daring variety to believe that they can do it too. As people connect with one another, collaboration and networking have thrived. Both Kim and Liam offer workshops, work with incoming productions and stage their own pieces. The supportive environment is helping artists to be brave and take the leap.

Kim and Liam acknowledge that they have become aware of a certain responsibility to the artists that rely on The Base and towards the performing arts generally, which they accept with great sincerity. The artists and the audiences are constantly on their minds, and they want to continue improving and guard against complacency. They never want an artist to come to The Base and feel that they don’t belong, or an audience member to feel that they had a ‘bad’ experience. Kim and Liam are committed to evolving in order to accommodate the growing variety of performances coming to The Base. To them, it’s very important that all the artists and performances receive the same quality attention and opportunity.

‘Here, nobody is better than anyone else’, Liam says. ‘Whether you’ve sold five tickets or a hundred tickets, we’re going to be here to support you. Security will be on their post, the bar will be open to serve your audience and you will receive the five-star treatment. We’re for the artists, for the arts, and for the theatre industry. We all have the same desire to see our creative work come alive. Respecting that goal and facilitating it for our artists, regardless of sales, is a core value of The Base.’

The Base determines success not by the number of tickets sold but by the performance realised. Not selling out the theatre is not considered a failure. Young and emerging artists do not have to worry about succeeding because performing is already seen as a successful night. This removes pressure from the artists and allows more ideas to surface. This encouraging atmosphere creates a safe space to dare and makes The Base an incubator for talent and originality. ‘It’s something that we are doing almost unintentionally, ’ says Kim. ‘We really just committed to providing a space where people can express themselves, because we need that space too. Our work is quite strange and unconventional. People see that and think: Oh, I didn’t know you could do that; maybe I can too. The space and the way we run it encourage innovation and involvement.’

Now that activity at The Base has gained more momentum, Kim and Liam want to offer more space and opportunity for artists during their creative process. From January next year, they hope to start hosting artists for working afternoons and evenings, a time when people can come to The Base to write, script, smith and craft, followed by drinks, music and conversation. A true artist’s hub where creators can work and come together.

Kim and Liam’s latest creation, The Cardinal, is an immersive, theatrical piece that thrilled their audience so much that people came more than once to experience the multidimensional performance in different ways. The piece starts with a man, The Hero, who wakes up in a raunchy, red-lit place filled with a smoke-machine haze and a bunch of other peculiar characters. He soon finds out that he’s in a bar, The Cardinal. The staff are dressed up as cowboys, and there are people walking around with piggy banks. Bewildered, he sets about trying to figure out how he got there. As he starts engaging the other characters, trying to make sense of his situation, he gathers that he has somehow been tasked with a quest of which he has no memory. He’s been thrown into the deep end with no instruction or explanation. In this sense, he reflects the audience’s position. At first, they too don’t know what’s going on. When they approach the bar at the start of the story, asking what they should do, they receive the same cryptic and open-ended responses as The Hero, forcing them to join him in his seeking.

As the search continues, The Hero and the audience realise they are caught in a game akin to an escape room. As they move through the different spaces and tasks they become aware of a back alley dimension and an outside world. They start understanding that their current situation is but one simulation playing out in a much larger context, fraught with problems and intrigue. They get the sense that this place is some sort of prison. This raises several questions. What version of a prison is styled as a sexy hell? Who is imprisoned here and why is The Hero among them? The Hero’s backstory then becomes an important issue. The audience is confronted with the possibility that The Hero they were rooting for might actually be a villain, giving rise to a delightfully torturous doubt.

‘We didn’t forget about that eighth character, but we had virtually no way of rehearsing it, ’ says Liam. Thus, rehearsal didn’t stop after opening. They continued rehearsing hard for two weeks into their run, editing and adjusting based on their growing understanding of how the audience fits into the piece. What they found is that it would never have a truly final, perfected rendition, but would remain evolving. In response to Liam joking that the ‘cast hates us a little bit’, Kim says, ‘I don’t pity it’. Even as their current run came to a close, she was still rewriting parts in her head and making adaptations for future renditions. ‘I would like our work to be as good as it can be. If you think about maths, it’s an equation-answer, but with art many answers are possible. I keep adding elements to the set, little Easter eggs that elaborate this world and form integral elements to the plot. Just yesterday, I was making something with red wool and tape that became this literal thread running through the set and story, a new addition for the last performance.’

The avant-garde nature of this piece, and much of the performances and events at The Base, reminds me of the outré theatre scene of the 80s that existed in pockets like Melville, Johannesburg. Exemplified by After Dark, a dinner/cabaret theatre, this scene hosted highly experimental work and gave us names like Elzabé Zietsman, Lizz Meiring and Johannes Kerkorrel. Similarly, Kim and Liam have a different way of thinking about space and what can happen in it.

They want the audience to embody the performance and the experience. To feel, smell, taste and touch the show. They believe that theatre and performance do not have to happen ‘back there’ on a stage separate from the audience. They admit that they weren’t always sure that it would work. Stepping into a show might not be for everyone, but having taken the risk and putting it out there, they have attracted a host of new artists (and audiences) who totally get it. New voices who want to talk about what’s happening now in a new way that is resonating with contemporary audiences. 

‘There is a pull and it’s going to get bigger and bigger’, says Kim. We specifically say that we are not TV or TikTok and don’t offer the instant gratification of a device. We offer slow-burns. You really have to buy into the concepts and be present. In the first five to ten minutes of a show we often see the audience going through that process of realisation that they actually have to listen; not click, but engage, really, and when they do, the reward is so much greater’. 

Adding to the appeal of attending a live performance, the setup of The Base further promotes real-life connection. The openness and amenities like the bar encourage socialising and brings in events and shows that are community and socially driven. People come for the entertainment but also to join in and be part of something, a crowd, a community. To stay updated about ongoing and upcoming performances and events, follow The Outlore company on Instagram @theoutlore and The Base venue @theoutlorebase. To enquire about auditions, collaborations, networking or getting involved in any other way, send them a DM or an e-mail at info@theoutlore.com.