Punchdrunk's
The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable
The elusive Punchdrunk Theatre Co.'s 'The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable' was an experience like no other. We paid our £45 (best i've every spent) and expected the profound. We entered the three floor building wear masks - in silence - and were pushed out of a lift into terrifying total darkness. As our eyes adjusted to the abandoned set the heavy music was neurotic and intense and seemed to resonate in our souls as we struggled to think of anything else! It controlled our mood, lifting us, dropping us as the drama unfolded. It felt like wandering around in a dreamlike state of hallucination: three hours of pure escapism. There was sex, nudity, violence and fear. A cocktail for raw entertainment.
"Amidst the fading glamour of 1960s Los Angeles, stands Temple Studios – a crumbling monument to the golden age of film, seducing wide-eyed dreamers with the promise of wealth and fame. Here, movie stars mingle with hungry young upstarts, while beyond the gates lies a forgotten hinterland where the many rejected by the studio system scratch out a living. Inspired by Georg Büchner's fractured masterpiece Woyzeck, The Drowned Man explores the darkness of the Hollywood dream. Celluloid fantasy meets desperate reality, and certainty dissolves into a hallucinatory world"
The characters danced and chased each other around the labyrinth of rooms and floors, it was a physical challenge in itself to follow them. The story was set in a cowboy world out West and the set was brilliant. There were caravans, burnt out Cadillacs, diners and post offices and everything in them worked, was edible, you could even get into the bed with a whiskey if you so desired. I strayed from chasing the characters at one point and wandered into a post office where I sneakily opened a letter from the bottom of the pile. To my delight, it was a hand written, neurotic letter between two of the play's lovers. Astounding attention to detail.
The most awe inspiring scene was watching Dwayn in a state of agonizing delirium, throwing his body into the air in twists and turns verging on contortion. Before we knew it he was naked and writhing in the sand. Not to break the intensity of his performance, but there was comedy gold to be observed as every female spectator suddenly galloped across the set to watch this frolicking aerien nude (it was similar to the infamous Specsavers advert with the man on the beach)
The performance plays with your mind, you could run to the third floor and stumble upon a scene you'd already watched unfold hours before. for example i had watched a waitress deliver a lemonade to her lover in the grocery store, then an hour later I found her making the very same lemonade back in the diner and skating off in his direction. The greatest pleasure was the childlike sense of discovery I found in myself as I ran alone through the building, searching for excitement in the darkness.
At the end of the play, after a murder has been committed William pulls his lover's drowned corpse from the fountain and everybody gasped at how real it felt. If it all got too overwhelming during the performance there was a seductive speakeasy style bar hidden in the set, where you could watch a voluptuous singer dazzle you with her charms over a manhattan cocktail.
It felt like a hallucination: hedonists join the queue.
Watch the trailer and book your tickets!
