Audience gets bloody in interactive play

The audience gets more than it bargained for in a new play in Manila.

Blood, guts and death - all fake of course - in an interactive adaptation of Japanese author Koushun Takami's gory - "Battle Royale".

The novel tells the story of junior high school students who are abducted and sent to an island by a Japanese authoritarian regime.

They're told to kill each other until one survivor remains.

The play performed by the Philippine theatre group the Sipat Lawin Ensemble was adapted to an abadoned suburban school to fit the local audience.

Those watching are also encouraged to participate, even choosing the storylines for characters to pursue.

The play's director and writer says this element of the play is essential.

SOUNDBITE: JK Anicoche, Battalia Royale Director, saying (English):

"It's a social experiment, a theatre experiment, where we question issues of violence, issues of morality and mortality among teenagers."

SOUNDBITE: Sam Burns-Warr, Script Writer, saying (English):

"We basically just want to open a discussion and discourse; a conversation about everything they experience about the play, whether it be the violence; whether it be the situation; the way people react to each other; the way the youth is today and how that works."

An audience member and pre-school teacher says she wasn't expecting the realness of the play.

SOUNDBITE: Pre-School Teacher Ynnah Ocampo, saying (Filipino/English):

"I was not expecting it to be like that when translated on stage. You can actually see these live people dead, beside you, some blood squirting on you. It was shocking, but great."

The performance was well received by audiences and social networking sites and the theatre group could hold another showing in September.

Cindy Martin, Reuters