Day Eighty Five

     One of the weirder experiences of my life today.  We went to the ‘blind theater’. By this I don’t mean a theatre for the blind but rather a theatre where the audience is blind. As we all know, the blind have extra strong taste, touch, smell, and hearing, and this theatre is based off that concept, that with the removal of one sense the other four are heightened. 

     We were led into a totally pitch black theatre. So dark that I could wave my hand directly in front of my face without the slightest idea it was there. We were individually seated at a table holding 6, my family and two others, on which our dinner had been laid out. We had been told that our plate had 6 parts and we were to start from the left side and work our way to the right side of the plate. We were also told prior to entering that there was a breadbasket as well as glasses of wine on the table.

     I should mention that there was no silverware on our table. We ate the whole meal with just our hands. The whole time waiters were coming around (no idea how they were able to navigate the room) just like a normal restaurant. I call this period of the meal the calibrating process, where are mind got used to not having sight and began to heighten our sense of smell, touch, touch, and hearing.

    Right as we finished dinner the play began. It was in Spanish so my family wasn’t able to understand very much but it was a musical and the experience didn’t rely on comprehension as much as just immersion in the experience.  The entire play took place around us with the actors walking among the tables while acting and singing, occasionally spraying us with misters or rubbing their hand across our backs. It was all very interesting, and by the end you get used to not being able to see but still not really comfortable with the whole idea.

      At the end the revealed the actors and waiters who we had been imagining all night. Turns out about half of them were in face blind, what a twist!