Playing it by ear

IN AUGUST the streets of Edinburgh are rarely what they seem. If something catches your eye, you're never certain if it's real life or a stunt by actors. Thanks to the advent of the iPod, the blur between fact and fiction is growing greater still. That's because several adventurous companies have forsaken regular theatres in favour of equipping their audience with a music player and sending them out on a journey of discovery. It means you'll never be sure the people you see with headphones aren't actually in the middle of a great drama. And the people with headphones will never be sure you're not an actor in it.

The enterprising Forest Fringe venue specialises in this kind of stuff. To participate in The Bench by Ant Hampton and Glen Neath, you have to arrange for a friend to meet someone they don't know. Meanwhile, the friend makes a similar arrangement for you. The meeting takes place on a bench and an iPod provides the dialogue. At the end of 45 minutes, the strangers might have become friends.

If you see couples wearing headphones in the Filmhouse, they could be participating in Every Minute, Always by Melanie Wilson and Abigail Conway, an installation in which two people watch the screen in the company of other couples doing the same. And if you see a whole flashmob listening to MP3 players, they have most likely made plans on Facebook to meet up as part of Duncan Speakman's As If It Were the Last Time: A Subtlemob.

It's even possible you will be drawn into an event unawares. If you spot an old BT payphone, take a second look before you put your money in. It might be one of five kiosks installed around the city as part of Invisible Dot Communications Ltd. In return for your pound, it will play a short story by one of 30 Fringe names.

Or maybe you fancy being a player in your own film-noir adventure? If so, check out Suspicious Package by New York's Fifth Wall. Adapted specially for the atmospheric closes of the Old Town, it is a thriller in which you play one of the characters. "You show up and decide among the group what character you're going to be," says playwright Gyda Arber. "Then you get a video iPod for your character and a prop - like a hat or maybe a boa - and off you go. The iPod gives you instructions about where to go and what to do. You end up meeting the other people in your group and you have lines that you read off the screen. As you go, there are voice-over tracks telling you how you feel about each incident and you have video flashbacks that explain why you're there."

Having always found interactive theatre to be more exciting in theory than practice, Arber wanted to create a piece in which all players felt fully involved.

"I thought, how fun would it be if everyone who showed up could have a starring role in the show?" she says.

What fun also, she thought, to end up in your very own film noir. "I've always had a secret desire to live in a film noir. The dialogue is so wonderful. There's that secret desire in all of us to respond with the perfect quick-witted response. This is great because you're in a scene and the perfect response comes up on the screen. Of course, people stumble over their lines and they laugh about it and really by the end of it everybody's having a good time."

On the busy streets of New York, people enjoyed the excuse to slow down and take in their environment. The same will be true in Edinburgh where the corners and stairwells of the Old Town are a fine match for the spy-versus-spy plot of Suspicious Package.

"It would be so sad to do the show in Edinburgh and not use all those little alleyways because they're so unique to Edinburgh," she says.

Engaging on an even deeper level with the city is En Route, an iPod performance by Melbourne's One Step At A Time Like This. The award-winning company has mounted productions with the same title in four Australian cities, but each one has been reconfigured to suit the location.

When I catch up with three of the creators, Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz and Julian Rickert, they have just spent the morning wandering the streets on a day that's like a parody of bad Scottish weather. If anything, they are invigorated by the experience. "We work with a template of elements and then we go walking for days as we are currently doing," says Kersten. "We find the kinds of locations that we like, then the challenge is to thread them together in a continuous route that sustains interest."

The locations they like are not the usual tourist traps. They have a thing about billboards, back streets and doors marked "no entry". "We like secret, grungy places, like some lane or alley that you would not normally walk down," says Kersten.

Although they are keeping the specific route through Edinburgh a surprise, they want it to make residents see their city anew. In Adelaide, it meant discovering unexpected beauty in the profusion of car parks; in Edinburgh, it is likely to mean digging down to discover what lies beneath the picturesque views.

"Part of how it works is that you don't know where you're going and you don't know how you're going to find out where you're going," says Korobacz, explaining that audiences are guided by iPod and mobile phone and that their journey is accompanied by a soundtrack of music, philosophy and poetry.

"By going into the dark, so to speak, you become more present. It's directly against the 'use' mentality of a place where you've got to get through to somewhere. You're dwelling in the moment."

Of course, while all the creative stuff is going on in your imagination, real life continues around you. That, says Korobacz, is part of En Route's charm: "We love the fact people can take their own phone calls, do their own bits of shopping and still be doing a show. The everyday can continue and be incorporated. It's the poeticisation of experience."

• En Route, the Traverse, until 26 August; Suspicious Package, C Too, until 30 August; Every Minute, Always and The Bench are at the Forest Fringe, tomorrow until 14 August; As If It Were the Last Time: A Subtlemob is on 13 August; Invisible Dot Communications Ltd runs throughout August See Fringe programme for locations and times.

A version of this article first appeared in the August 8 edition of Scotland on Sunday. "I thought, how fun would it be if everyone who showed up could have a starring role in the show?" she says.

What fun also, she thought, to end up in your very own film noir. "I've always had a secret desire to live in a film noir. The dialogue is so wonderful. There's that secret desire in all of us to respond with the perfect quick-witted response. This is great because you're in a scene and the perfect response comes up on the screen. Of course, people stumble over their lines and they laugh about it and really by the end of it everybody's having a good time."

On the busy streets of New York, people enjoyed the excuse to slow down and take in their environment. The same will be true in Edinburgh where the corners and stairwells of the Old Town are a fine match for the spy-versus-spy plot of Suspicious Package. "It would be so sad to do the show in Edinburgh and not use all those little alleyways because they're so unique to Edinburgh," she says.

Engaging on an even deeper level with the city is En Route, an iPod performance by Melbourne's One Step At A Time Like This. The award-winning company has mounted productions with the same title in four Australian cities, but each one has been reconfigured to suit the location.

When I catch up with three of the creators, Suzanne Kersten, Clair Korobacz and Julian Rickert, they have just spent the morning wandering the streets on a day that's like a parody of bad Scottish weather. If anything, they are invigorated by the experience. "We work with a template of elements and then we go walking for days as we are currently doing," says Kersten. "We find the kinds of locations that we like, then the challenge is to thread them together in a continuous route that sustains interest."

The locations they like are not the usual tourist traps. They have a thing about billboards, back streets and doors marked "no entry". "We like secret, grungy places, like some lane or alley that you would not normally walk down," says Kersten.

Although they are keeping the specific route through Edinburgh a surprise, they want it to make residents see their city anew. In Adelaide, it meant discovering unexpected beauty in the profusion of car parks; in Edinburgh, it is likely to mean digging down to discover what lies beneath the picturesque views.

"Part of how it works is that you don't know where you're going and you don't know how you're going to find out where you're going," says Korobacz, explaining that audiences are guided by iPod and mobile phone and that their journey is accompanied by a soundtrack of music, philosophy and poetry. "By going into the dark, so to speak, you become more present. It's directly against the ‘use' mentality of a place where you've got to get through to somewhere. You're dwelling in the moment."

Of course, while all the creative stuff is going on in your imagination, real life continues around you. That, says Korobacz, is part of En Route's charm: "We love the fact people can take their own phone calls, do their own bits of shopping and still be doing a show. The everyday can continue and be incorporated. It's the poeticisation of experience." v

En Route, the Traverse, until 26 August; Suspicious Package, C Too, until 30 August; Every Minute, Always and The Bench are at the Forest Fringe, tomorrow until 14 August; As If It Were the Last Time: A Subtlemob is on 13 August; Invisible Dot Communications Ltd runs throughout August See Fringe programme for locations and times.