‘Campfire Stories’, an Ode to Americanness (Or Dang! There’s marshmallow smeared on my beard!)

(Guilherme is a theatre actor, director, and educator currently pursuing a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Pittsburgh.)

I felt like an alien at a Yankee Boy Scouts camp — and yet I had fun!

It was still daylight when I arrived with my friend Laya at Camp Guyasuta, a scout site in Sharpsburg, a large, green property not too far from downtown Pittsburgh. We were welcomed by Marissa and Lulu, with whom we exchanged some good conversation about Theater while waiting for more spectators to effectively step into the wilderness. This immersive theater experience — which has been the focus of Vigilance Theater Group since its creation in 2018 — began there, with a five-minute walk until we actually reached the performance space. During the pleasant walk, the beautiful green landscape, the cool air, and the constant chirping of birds at dusk already put the audience into another bodily state, even if at all times it was also possible to hear the noise of the highway as an index of urbanity.

An immersive theater work, staged outside a theatre building, deepens or complicates two layers that are always present and at play in the theatrical event: the spheres of theatricality (fiction, narrative) and performativity (an action, something that belongs to life and corporeality). These spheres do not cancel each other out. On the contrary, they are in constant friction during the theatrical event. The element of reception further complicates them, as each audience member reacts and receives the stimuli unfolding before their eyes. For instance, at dusk in Camp Guyasuta, countless tiny bugs hovered around the bodies of both spectators and actors. When a performer, in the middle of a scene, brushed away a mosquito that was annoying them: this belongs to the performative level, since it was a real annoyance for the performer at that moment, but it is also incorporated into the theatrical, fictional, diegetic level (as literary theory would put it): we are watching the character deal with a real problem, just as we all were in the audience! The epitome of this confusion is evident in this project (even if we don’t necessarily realize it as spectators) in the use of the performers’ real names during the play, resulting in a total overlap of the fictional and real spheres.

Before fully entering the diegetic space, a member of the production asks our names, checks our ticket purchases, and gives a general safety announcement: it is not allowed to leave alone in the middle of the piece (since the space is dark and potentially hazardous), and it is not permitted to disrespect the actors. In other words, the diegesis, the make-believe, is framed, despite the immersive experience, by the moral values of the so-called real world. Play, pretend, but within boundaries and limits.

Finally, after this ritual of passage, Laya, I, and the rest of the audience entered the world of Camp Moonside, providing a fictional mirroring between Camp Guyasuta and the camp in which the narrative would unfold. The diegetic play soon gained an embodied dimension, since we were received by the camp counselors (the cast) as this season’s campers. They asked our names, welcomed us warmly, and let us feel at ease to explore the space, buying snacks, making friendship bracelets with letters and colorful beads, drawing on the ground… And here, Brooke Echnat‘s mise en scène was, in my view, very successful, since there is an extended temporality for this prologue moment, truly functioning as a make-believe game, a passage, an invitation: now you will be the campers. Ok!

Laya and I, two foreigners, were there like two aliens. I would dare to say that Campfire Stories is an ode to American culture. There is a series of cultural and behavioral habits revisited and enacted there that made me reflect on and experience bodily how culture is not an abstract term, but something concrete and practical, serving to gather people through similarities (while also highlighting differences). Let me start with a very material factor. Along with the ticket, the production asked spectators to bring camping chairs to sit on — something neither Laya nor I had, but, surprise! Apparently, everyone else did! Except for two other people (who also sat on wooden benches, like us), each person arrived with their own chair — here a symbol of Americanness and its adventurous spirit (perhaps I am exaggerating here). Since our arrival, the counselors invited us to eat “s’mores,” something I had no idea what it was, but soon understood involved marshmallows over the fire. A brief pause to recall the performative level: we were not allowed to get close to the fire, for safety reasons, I imagine; so members of the production helped us with the s’mores — which is, of course, a generous act of care, but somehow creates a short circuit in the diegetic (narrative) and the theatrical (make-believe) sphere. (That said, thank you for the s’mores—what a delightful treat!)

After a while, I gathered courage and asked what a “s’more” was, facing this small moment of embarrassment in order to join in this ritual of Americanness. A camper like me (an audience member) immediately explained with great humor: “It’s nothing more than a cracker, chocolate, and marshmallow… But it’s so good you’ll want ‘some more’ — s’more, get it?” And we laughed together. Now I felt a bit more part of this community. Eating the s’more with marshmallow all over my beard (that wasn’t in the script), but I was happy. In fact, this arrival at the space was, by far, my favorite part of the show, and I want to say more about it.

To ensure our safety at Camp Moonside, Groundskeeper Al gave us a small workshop on how to deal with bears, and I simply cracked up in laughter. Allie Lampman-Sims plays the character with ease and precision, and I went home wishing Sean Collier‘s text had explored more of this fun character. Sydney DuBose, with her magnetic charisma, invited campers to a repeat-after-me singing moment. Here, once again, I not only had fun but also felt a sense of belonging, responding (almost always) correctly to the melodies, words, and movements proposed by the counselor. It is not that easy for someone with English as a second language to follow this dynamic, but I nailed it! At Camp Moonside, I performed belonging! Moreover, Tal Kroser and Bradleigh Bell were constantly strumming melodies on the guitar and inviting everyone to sing. And once again, the musical choices were not just any songs, but reinforcements of what I have been trying to argue: that nation, heritage, tradition, and culture are not abstract concepts, but something lived bodily. “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” the 1971 John Denver song, carried everyone, with the older campers leading. I myself recognized the melody, feeling a weird nostalgia for a time and place I never lived — but which the cultural industry (mostly Hollywood) has planted deep in me, note by note, frame by frame. But certainly, it was “Party in the U.S.A.” by Miley Cyrus that best created the sing-along vibe and produced that feeling that theatrical events so often succeed in generating, of a virtual collective united by bonds of communion. There I was, at a theater show in the United States, watching a performance about a summer camp in the United States, while eating a treat that is quintessentially American — the very paroxysm of sugar, I might add — as the audience joined in singing a festive song about the country and its welcoming atmosphere. One couldn’t help but recognize this juxtaposition as not only cultural but distinctly nationalist. And of course, being a foreigner sharpened my perception of it all. “Welcome to the land of fame excess (whoa!). Am I gonna fit in?” asks Miley Cyrus. But perhaps the more appropriate question for the United States in 2025 is not who will fit in, but who will be welcome here. And who will be expelled? Culture is political and politics is cultural.

But let us return to Theater (which is never just Theater). At Camp Moonside, we were all warmly welcomed, and after the highly interactive prologue, the play’s structure shifted. Interactivity and simultaneous scattered actions (bracelets, s’mores, songs, counselors introducing themselves one by one) diminished, giving way to a more conservative theatrical arrangement: one space became the stage, and another the audience. And even though this audience was part of the diegetic sphere (we were campers on the first night of the season), there were limitations of the conservative theatrical game: we were not invited, nor did we feel comfortable, to move around, change perspective, or shift places. For this reason, and also due to other directing choices, the use of space felt not very bold. My eyes longed for scenes happening further away, in the woods, in the background, at a distance, playing with perspective. But the action unfolded mostly right there, very close.

The dramatic action of the piece is quite simple, a brave choice by Collier. What we see are the counselors competing in a scary story contest. I won’t go into details here because I don’t want to give spoilers. Each story had different levels of success, in my view. But overall, the group used the classic resources of theatricality (light, sound, props, etc.) very little. The few times such resources were employed, my eyes lit up! I laughed at moments, felt anxious at others, but also noticed how difficult it is to provoke horror as a sensation. And at times, the cast seemed somewhat distant from the theatrical action. Let me explain. I sensed that in some moments, the horror was being constructed as a horror for children, since we, the audience, were playing the role of kids. But there were no actual children in the audience. And this bothered me a bit. The exception, in a good sense, was the story of the girl with the ribbon, brilliantly narrated by Bradleigh Bell; a highly visual and distressing story, but one that also proposed an important reflection. There, I felt the theatrical play became more complex! The story had relevance and traction in both the theatrical world and the real, performative sphere. Nothing in Theater is ever random; everything is (or should be) a choice.

I close this reflection by shedding light on the emblematic figure of Lani Skellington, who, throughout the performance, sat by the campfire — located at the back of the “stage,” not exactly near us. The multidisciplinary artist remained onstage in a liminal space, participating very little in the dramatic action (but still within it), while maintaining a very physical, concrete, real task of tending the fire, feeding it with new logs from time to time. Their bodily quality differed from that of the rest of the cast, with slow movements, as if aiming not to draw attention. And yet, I confess, there were moments when the stories did not hold my attention as much, and I shared some silent moments (even if they don’t know it) with the fire keeper Lani. It is hard to compete with the hypnotic power of dancing flames.

It had been a long time since I attended an immersive theater piece. Despite some reservations about spatial use and the uneven impact of the stories, I thoroughly enjoyed Vigilance Theater Group’s new production! Don’t miss this season, camper! Camp Moonside awaits until the 13th! Go, go, go!