Down To Chance is a quirky two hander that structurally is like a radio play, telling the story of an earthquake in Anchorage, Alaska, shortly after the US purchase of the territory. The two actors portray an entire town’s worth of characters, leveraging props and incredible physicality and vocal work to give distinct, funny, charming characters life, at times for mere seconds.
What is truly inventive here is the use of sound. For a play about radio, it really leans into this mechanism, leveraging audio treatment to amplified sound to create different textures to the various radios we’re meant to hear from. What’s more, the core action of the play is to ask people to stay home and listen to the radio for information — and radios were placed on the tables around the cabaret style audience setup, with a mic pack plugged in so that they actually played this audio to your table, creating a delightful immersion, and bringing the audience closer to the action.