London.

THE DROWNED MAN: A HOLLYWOOD FABLE
inspired by Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck

Temple Studios 31 London Street W2 1DJ To 31 December 2013
Tue-Thu & 23, 30 Dec 7pm (no performance 14 Nov, 24, 25 Dec), Fri-Sun 5pm, Fri, Sat 9pm Mat Fri-Sun 5pm with six arrival times in 10-minute intervals).
Runs 3hr No interval.

TICKETS: 020 7452 3000.
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk
Review: Reen Polonsky 17 July.

Temple Studios 31 London Street W2 1DJ To 31 December 2013
Tue-Thu & 23, 30 Dec 7pm (no performance 14 Nov, 24, 25 Dec), Fri-Sun 5pm, Fri, Sat 9pm Mat Fri-Sun 5pm with six arrival times in 10-minute intervals).
Runs 3hr No interval.

TICKETS: 020 7452 3000.
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk
Review: Reen Polonsky 17 July.

Stunning immersive theatre in a disused sorting office.
Standing on the pavement outside Temple Studios, I overheard a couple discussing a graphic murder scene that, apparently, I completely missed. And that’s the trouble with (or the delight of, depending on how you look at it) Punchdrunk’s brand of immersive theatre. It’s impossible to see everything. You can choose to join the throngs of audience members following a specific character. You can wander in and out of rooms at leisure, occasionally interrupted by actors walking into the space. But you can’t do both. Not at the same time, anyway.

By the very nature of immersive theatre, your experience of The Drowned Man will be very different from mine. You will see different scenes in a different order than I did. The only time the whole audience comes together is for the last 10 minutes of the show. But, even then, having followed separate narratives, you may view the finale differently from your neighbours.

Loosely based on Georg Büchner’s unfinished masterpiece Woyzeck, The Drowned Man tells the tale of two couples torn apart by jealousy and infidelity, with predictably tragic results. But if you’re looking for a clear narrative, you won’t find it in this production. Having spent an hour trying to figure out what was going on, I gave up and simply watched.

The plot may be fuzzy and the dialogue practically non-existent, but Maxine Doyle’s choreography is engrossing. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the brutal sex scene performed on top of a beat-up old Chevy.

The real star of the show, however, is the set. Spread across four floors of a disused sorting office, it includes a forest, a trailer park, a small-time American town and a 1960s film studio. My favourite part was the surreal sandy desert populated by scarecrows that took up the entire fourth floor.

Take a minute to flip through the notebooks and peek into drawers. This fictional world is as real as it gets.

Like previous Punchdrunk shows, The Drowned Man is weighted more heavily towards style rather than substance, but when the style is this stunning, does it matter?

Andrea / Assistant to Ms Grey: Kirsty Arnold.
Mary / The Seamstress: Laure Bachelot.
Swing: Claude Estee / Frankie / Miguel: Luke Birch.
Executive: Matthew Blake.
Mr. Stanford: Sam Booth.
Wendy / Drugstore Girl: Sophie Bortolussi.
Conrad / Badlands Jack / The Gatekeeper: Adam Burton.
Executive: Jo Bowis.
Claude Estee / Badlands Jack: River Carmalt.
Marshall / The Grocer: Fionn Cox-Davies.
Faye Greener / Romola: Sonya Cullingford.
Dolores Grey: Sarah Dowling.
Frankie: Conor Doyle.
Lila: Kath Duggan.
Andy / The Doctor: Tomislav English.
Claude Estee / Badlands Jack: David Essing.
Wendy / Drugstore Girl: Anna Finkel.
William / The Fool: Omar Gordon.
Andrea / Assistant to Ms. Grey: Fania Grigoriou.
Dwayne / The Gatekeeper: Oliver Hornsby-Sayer.
Swing: Wendy / Dolores Grey / Mary: Pauline Huguet.
Mary / The Seamstress: Kate Jackson.
Harry Greener: Jim Kitson.
Marshall / The Grocer: Jesse Kovarsky.
Dolores Grey / The Dust Witch: Jane Leaney.
Swing: Faye Greener / Andrea / Drugstore Girl: Miranda Mac Letten.
Faye Greener / Romola: Katie Lusby.
Executive: Kathryn McGarr.
Romola / The Dust Witch / The Seamstress / Assistant to Ms. Grey: Kate McGuiness.
Andy / The Doctor: Rob McNeill.
Swing: Andy, Dwayne: Nicola Migliorati.
Alice Estee: Emily Mytton.
Frankie / Conrad: Owen Ridley-Demonick.
Dwayne / The Gatekeeper: Vinicius Salles.
Harry Greener / Mr. Stanford / Badlands Jack / The Grocer: Julian Stolzenberg.
The Doctor / The Gatekeeper / The Barman / The Fool: Francois Testory.
Miguel / The Barman: Ygal Jerome Tsur.
Miguel / The Barman: Ed Warner.
Alice Estee / Lila / Drugstore Girl / The Dust Witch: Margarita Zarilla.
William / The Fool: Paul Zivkovich.

BAND: Pete Bennie, Graham Farnsworth, Una Palliser.

Directors: Felix Barrett, Maxine Doyle.
Designers: Felix Barrett, Livi Vaughan, Beatrice Minns.
Lighting: Mike Gunning.
Sound: Stephen Dobbie.
Choreographer: Maxine Doyle.

2013-07-23 02:52:25