Invisible theatre: so real you don't even know it's happening.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

The audience take their seats at around 7pm. Happily talking and eating through most of the show, they barely notice anything is going on. If they do, it's with a mixture of amusement, confusion and embarrassment. Some two hours later they seem arbitrarily to leave, and the performance comes to an abrupt halt.

It might not sound like a recipe for success -- but this is the most important piece of theatre happening anywhere in the country. Some 40 years ago, director Augusto Boal began experimenting with invisible theatre -- rehearsing and performing semi-improvised pieces in public spaces to the unsuspecting public. Meanwhile in the bohemian lofts of New York City, a new generation of visionaries were embedding their art ever further into the everyday. Lurking in the corner of a diner, Vito Acconci sat quietly rubbing his arm to produce a sore, while Allan Kaprow created instructions for almost unseen activities to be carried out on the streets of the city. In this way, theatre broke free of the auditorium, art tore itself from the gallery and the museum. Even audiences were transformed, no longer limited to those who knew they were an audience.

While now these artists are internationally recognised and written about, a new generation has begun to (dis)appear in their place, spinning these ideas out in brilliant new ways.

Foremost amongst them is a dynamic young artist who goes only by the pseudonym Dermo. For over two years he (or she) has been creating what he calls "transparent large-scale urban dioramas" without anyone ...