fluffymark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fluffymark) wrote2006-12-30 12:31 am
fluffymark) wrote2006-12-30 12:31 am
Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me
If you like your theatre to be POWERFUL, ENIGMATIC and just to be a plain SURREAL experience, then get out to Wapping to see the punchdrunk performance of Goethe’s FAUST. I went with the always delightful ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
squirmelia, wintrmute and Ramesh last night to see this experience (plus we bumped into verlaine and companion there) and it’s certainly the strangest thing I’ve seen all year, and that’s saying something. *boggles*
So what made it special? First the venue. No ordinary theatre, the production takes place in a huge 5 storey warehouse, with dozens of rooms on each floor, connected by a unfathomable labyrinth of corridors and stairs. Turn off all the lights, all the rooms are dimly lit by candles for that special spooky atmosphere. Now decorate each room as an elaborate and fully detailed set like a totally crazy art installation. Faust’s study, a pentagram, a library, an American diner, several bars, a ballroom, a stable, a cornfield, a wood, a temple, many bedrooms, and many other rooms I never quite figured out what they were. Add random statues, often of a religious nature, and then finish the whole thing off with chilling EERIE sound effects. It’s like being trapped in some nightmarish American haunted house, and genuinely SCARY AS HELL. I guess that’s the point. And that’s just the set. *nodnod*
Now comes the fun and enigmatic bit. The audience all had to wear masks. We are divided up in to small groups, shepherded into a lift, and then spitted out at random floors in even smaller groups. We are then free to separate and wander this strange darkened haunted maze as we may. Occasionally we encounter actors, who often seem to appear out of nowhere, perform something, and promptly run off again. Which character was that? What’s going on? Who knows? Who is that lurking in the corner? An actor, a statue, or just someone else in the audience exploring like us? You see, the whole play is a puzzle, performed simultaneously all over the building. We caught glimpses of events and encounters between the various characters. By its very nature its very fragmented and piecemeal, and impossible to see everything, and that makes it fascinating. Every member of the audience gets a totally different truly individual experience, and sees different bits of the story. Much of the acting is done without speech, which makes it even more surreal and frustrating, yet adding to the enigma. Its extremely hard to even work out who is supposed to be who, especially at first. What few words that are said are then in German, except for the very critical plot points. First we wandered and encountered the actors by chance. Later we decided as a better stategy to catch more of the action to follow and chase various significant actors from room to room in order to follow their own personal timeline. Very slowly the story emerges, piece by piece, but still enigmatically incomplete. This process, combined with the EERIE set, the combined effect is truly powerful. It's totally AWESOME. If it didn’t cost so much, I’d love to go and see it again to get a totally different glimpse at the play. So what are you all waiting for, go grab a ticket to this magical and surreal adventure and head for Wapping! *prods*
That infamous pub The Prospect of Whitby is found just around the corner in Wapping. There was then an succession of pubs and bars, a lot of alcohol, no sleep, and drinking way past the sunrise. Drank an evil Kahlua based concoction for breakfast. Don't do this at home, kids. Never again! (well, maybe ...) We somehow ended up at a house In I-don’t-know-where-somewhere-North-London, and it’s only at about 8AM whenwintrmute‘s housemate stumbled upon us still drinking in the lounge there did I realise whose house I was in. For said housemate turned out to be romauld (and why hadn't anyone told me this earlier?), so we stayed up even later chatting until I was even more of a zombie. Small world, big scary hangover of DOOM.
Inevitably after all that fun today was a write-off, no way I was going ANYWHERE, not even the shops, and Cambridge was right out. Stayed in to recover with much needed me-time. Agree withlibellum that hermiting with Sugar Rush DVDs is a very good thing. Mmmmmm teenage lesbians. Why would I need or want anything more than that?
For New Year’s Eve all the fab people are headed to The Pembury to see in 2007. See lots of you there?
squirmelia, wintrmute and Ramesh last night to see this experience (plus we bumped into verlaine and companion there) and it’s certainly the strangest thing I’ve seen all year, and that’s saying something. *boggles*So what made it special? First the venue. No ordinary theatre, the production takes place in a huge 5 storey warehouse, with dozens of rooms on each floor, connected by a unfathomable labyrinth of corridors and stairs. Turn off all the lights, all the rooms are dimly lit by candles for that special spooky atmosphere. Now decorate each room as an elaborate and fully detailed set like a totally crazy art installation. Faust’s study, a pentagram, a library, an American diner, several bars, a ballroom, a stable, a cornfield, a wood, a temple, many bedrooms, and many other rooms I never quite figured out what they were. Add random statues, often of a religious nature, and then finish the whole thing off with chilling EERIE sound effects. It’s like being trapped in some nightmarish American haunted house, and genuinely SCARY AS HELL. I guess that’s the point. And that’s just the set. *nodnod*
Now comes the fun and enigmatic bit. The audience all had to wear masks. We are divided up in to small groups, shepherded into a lift, and then spitted out at random floors in even smaller groups. We are then free to separate and wander this strange darkened haunted maze as we may. Occasionally we encounter actors, who often seem to appear out of nowhere, perform something, and promptly run off again. Which character was that? What’s going on? Who knows? Who is that lurking in the corner? An actor, a statue, or just someone else in the audience exploring like us? You see, the whole play is a puzzle, performed simultaneously all over the building. We caught glimpses of events and encounters between the various characters. By its very nature its very fragmented and piecemeal, and impossible to see everything, and that makes it fascinating. Every member of the audience gets a totally different truly individual experience, and sees different bits of the story. Much of the acting is done without speech, which makes it even more surreal and frustrating, yet adding to the enigma. Its extremely hard to even work out who is supposed to be who, especially at first. What few words that are said are then in German, except for the very critical plot points. First we wandered and encountered the actors by chance. Later we decided as a better stategy to catch more of the action to follow and chase various significant actors from room to room in order to follow their own personal timeline. Very slowly the story emerges, piece by piece, but still enigmatically incomplete. This process, combined with the EERIE set, the combined effect is truly powerful. It's totally AWESOME. If it didn’t cost so much, I’d love to go and see it again to get a totally different glimpse at the play. So what are you all waiting for, go grab a ticket to this magical and surreal adventure and head for Wapping! *prods*
That infamous pub The Prospect of Whitby is found just around the corner in Wapping. There was then an succession of pubs and bars, a lot of alcohol, no sleep, and drinking way past the sunrise. Drank an evil Kahlua based concoction for breakfast. Don't do this at home, kids. Never again! (well, maybe ...) We somehow ended up at a house In I-don’t-know-where-somewhere-North-London, and it’s only at about 8AM when
wintrmute‘s housemate stumbled upon us still drinking in the lounge there did I realise whose house I was in. For said housemate turned out to be romauld (and why hadn't anyone told me this earlier?), so we stayed up even later chatting until I was even more of a zombie. Small world, big scary hangover of DOOM.Inevitably after all that fun today was a write-off, no way I was going ANYWHERE, not even the shops, and Cambridge was right out. Stayed in to recover with much needed me-time. Agree with
libellum that hermiting with Sugar Rush DVDs is a very good thing. Mmmmmm teenage lesbians. Why would I need or want anything more than that?For New Year’s Eve all the fab people are headed to The Pembury to see in 2007. See lots of you there?
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Pembury
I think I may pop in for a while earlier on in the evening.
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See you this even.:)
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Ramesh is
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