David Byrne stands in a room with an awkward amount of doors, most of which don\u2019t actually lead anywhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re taking the route the audience would take,\u201d Byrne explains. \u201cI\u2019m not spoiling too much, but every door looks the same, and they can hear sounds coming from some of these doors. Laughter, conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
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In about a month, audiences will walk through this same space, and be asked to find the magic door that leads to the next room. For now, it\u2019s just me and the former Talking Heads frontman on a tour of his forthcoming immersive theater installation \u201cTheater of the Mind\u201d in an office building in the Loop.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a head scratcher. But it\u2019s also kind of cool.<\/p>\n
After all, this is David Byrne, the Grammy-, Oscar-, Tony- and Golden Globe-award winner who has influenced many artists across many genres over a span of generations.<\/p>\n
The show, which opens March 11, will allow 16 people at a time through a series of rooms led by a tour guide named David. This David will be clad in a wardrobe consisting of a seersucker shirt, shorts and sandals with socks. The outfit is identical to one worn by a two-year-old Byrne in a photo on the wall of the installation.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/cst.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/e173a1e\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/2500x1667+0+0\/resize\/840x560!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F62%2Ff9%2Fbc689a684ac9b732ab6e6bbd89ea%2Fdavidbyrnetour-260208-08.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/picture>\n\u201cTheater of the Mind\u201d will allow 16 people at a time through a series of rooms led by a tour guide named David.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n When I mention to Byrne that people may expect the \u201cDavids\u201d to wear one of his more iconic big, square suits, he laughs, and says, \u201cI don\u2019t know if they\u2019ll go for this one.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTheater of the Mind\u201d is produced in partnership with the Goodman Theatre as part of the historic company\u2019s 100th season. When construction is complete, the exhibition will fill 15,000 square feet of ground floor space in the Reid Murdoch building Downtown. Following Byrne, and the show\u2019s director, Andrew Scoville, I slip through a trap door into an oddly shaped room with disco balls hanging from the ceiling that feels like a spooky night club.<\/p>\n Here, Byrne explains how everything about the room \u2014 from the shape and color, to the angle of the lighting and the sounds \u2014 is dictated by science. Yet each audience member will be given a new \u201cidentity\u201d at the start, and their experience will be fueled by a story that\u2019s fictional to them and semi-autobiographical to Byrne.<\/p>\n More headscratching.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re given a new self, a new identity,\u201d said Byrne. \u201cAnd what\u2019s kind of remarkable is, it happens so fast.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTheater of the Mind\u201d attempts to strip the audience\u2019 sense of self and propel them into a Wonderland-esque dream world.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n The idea of getting a new identity in an immersive show is not a new one. In fact, Byrne went to a show himself where it happened, and he was shocked how fast people would accept it. The wrinkle in this show is that the \u201cDavid\u201d character, who is the lone performer and guide of the audience, uses the new identities in a familiar way to cast the audience into roles as they walk through.<\/p>\n The 75-minute journey works backwards through the life of \u201cDavid\u201d while focusing on key moments from his memories. Along the way, the neuroscientific aspects of the production lead audience members to question their own memories, and in turn, their understanding of their true selves.<\/p>\n Some of the concepts used in the show are based on scientific research into perception, memory and how our brains filter data. In fact, the idea started with Byrne reading about an exhibit in Stockholm, \u201cBeing Barbie<\/u><\/a>,\u201d where people used virtual reality headsets to experience life as a Barbie doll.<\/p>\n \u201cWe like to think that [our brains] are recording machines,\u201d said Byrne. \u201cBut they\u2019re not. Every time we remember, we\u2019re kind of making things up, embellishing. Not intentionally lying, but if our identity is made up of, \u2018I\u2019m the person that this happened to, who was born here, and this happened to me,\u2019 does that mean our sense of identity is in question as well? That\u2019s the stuff that the show deals with.\u201d<\/p>\n Andrew Scoville (center) and David Byrne (left) with reporter Mike Davis at the installation for \u201cTheater of the Mind.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n I think of the Byrne of my own memory, which mostly comes second hand since I wasn\u2019t born yet when the Talking Heads were at their cultural height.<\/b> On a recent viewing of the band\u2019s 1984 concert film \u201cStop Making Sense,\u201d I spotted multiple songs that had been sampled in hip-hop, including \u201cOnce in a Lifetime,\u201d which Jay-Z flipped into \u201cIt\u2019s Alright,\u201d and, of course, \u201cGenius of Love\u201d by Tom Tom Club, which has been sampled more times than I can list here.<\/p>\n More people may be more familiar with his work with the Talking Heads or his iconic fashion: The famous \u2018big suit\u2019 Byrne donned in the film was recently an inspiration for Chicago drag performer Willow Pill<\/u><\/a> in the season 14 finale of \u201cRuPaul\u2019s Drag Race\u201d \u2014 and she won the show.<\/p>\n![\"David](\"https:\/\/cst.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/945934b\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/2500x1667+0+0\/resize\/840x560!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F01%2F5f%2F7b4d0d054a83ab377aa938ac89e0%2Fdavidbyrnetour-260208-06.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/picture>\n![\"Andrew](\"https:\/\/cst.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/c21ec75\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/2500x1667+0+0\/resize\/840x560!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchorus-production-cst-web.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fbrightspot%2F97%2F03%2F4b01cd5743b88366cbe60c248aaa%2Fdavidbyrnetour-260208-03.jpg\")
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