IFAS and the Market Theatre Laboratory present a unique audio play performance by the Kwasha! Theatre Company of French writer Boris Vian's exceptional play The Empire Builders. Recorded in binarual audio (whereby sound is recorded by two microphones and transmitted separately into each ear), the sound was captured and designed by celebrated sound designer Yogin Sullaphen to create a crisp, exciting and immersive audio world that reflects the tension and absurdity of Vian's play.

The Empire Builders is an absurdist tragi-comedy based on Vian's childhood experience of the Nazi occupation and was written during the period when French colonialism was finally coming to an end. Addressing themes such as alienation, selfishness, self-deception, prejudice, memory, masculinity and the incomprehensibility of existence and meaning, the play follows a middle-class family who are threatened by an unusual noise.

Evading the noise the family begin to descend through their apartment building and as they move down the floors rooms become progressively smaller and uncomfortable and family members start to mysteriously leave or vanish. 

The binaural audio play is set over three 20 minute episodes and can be listened to online for free throughout Feburary at empirebuildersinsa.org.