The Biscuit Factory, 24/01/2013

In the back end of a sleepy Bermondsey housing estate resides The Biscuit Factory; a concrete complex of vast industrial space and the location for experimental theatre group Shunt’s most recent production, The Architects. I enter the premises with caution; the deserted warehouse looms ominously and darkness consumes the car park. It’s drizzling and the wind rattles a distant garbage can. A fire exit on the side of the building swings open, and a figure emerges. “Are you here for Shunt..?” I nod, and am thus led to the box office, where I present my ticket and my hand is stamped: SHUNT. The entire operation feels ever so secretive – if not a little illegal – as if I’ve stumbled upon the headquarters for a gang of organized criminals.

 Here begins the journey into the obscurity that is Shunt; after branding, I’m thrown into a labyrinth of wooden walls and surveillance cameras that eerily capture my every move as I navigate through the system of identical corridors and rooms. I’m pretty sure the whole ‘performance’ is now one big conspiracy to lure me into the middle of God only knows where, vulnerable and alone, in order for someone to kidnap me and conduct weird experiments on me and then chop my limbs into a million little pieces and… I stumble into a monochrome art-deco bar, pulsing with fellow audience members and a live band. On the other hand, perhaps it’s not.

 But this is fun of Shunt: the evening thrives off of the unknown, the unexpected and the unconventional. We are informed (by a cast of eccentric, if not mildly cheesy Danes) that we are embarking upon an adult cruise; indeed, on the walls are large portholes through which bobbing waves induce just the right amount of nausea. We begin to discover that things on the ship aren’t running as smoothly as planned. In one moment, someone’s lost a finger. In another, a large turd has been found next to the barbeque area (which, we are told, is also an ideal spot for star-gazing). Whilst rib-tickling for the most part, I find myself willing the performance to pick up momentum; the narrative (or perhaps more appropriately, lack of) was beginning to tire, and the cold was rapidly numbing my toes.

 After narrowly dodging hypothermia, passengers are informed by a panic stricken cast that the ship is sinking. We must evacuate; ladies are led through the left emergency exit and gentleman through the right. Once assembled in a pitch black warehouse, an old television screen flickers on through the darkness with the words: “YOU ARE THE SACRIFICE. YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE“. So my initial hunch was correct. Fantastic.

 As the audience lets out one collective scream, united in the fear of our imminent doom, a veil of smoke fills the warehouse, dispersing and revealing a collection of red ropes that hang ominously from the ceiling, in which two performers appear entangled. With a great demonstration of strength and elegance, the acrobats dance above our heads as one by one, the ropes drop to the ground. With another hiss of smoke, the final rope falls and the performers have vanished out of sight. Whilst aesthetically quite beautiful, I couldn’t help but wonder what relevance the sequence bore to, well, anything really.

In what seemed like one final attempt to create a lasting image, on a platform above our heads stands the four cruise ship workers; one dressed in a satin robe and slurping wine, one smoking a cigar, one wearing sunglasses, and one wearing nothing at all. The image was seedy – intentionally so – but again, evoked more confusion than appreciation. With a few awkward whispers of “is it finished?” and “can we leave?”, Shunt’s The Architects had run it’s course, and thus concluded an evening of bewildering obscurity.

 The production was good – not great – and certainly left me questioning a degree that had me stumbling through an abandoned biscuit factory on a cold, Thursday eve. Shunt claim the performance was inspired by the myth of the Minotaur, but only briefly touch upon this (and the reference is vague at best). Visually, the performance ticked a lot of boxes. But I left with a sense that the company had focused so much on the aesthetic style, that in the process, they had neglected to create any real substance. I suppose the ship really did sink on this occasion.

The Barbican, 31/10/2012

Mingling with zombie brides, blood-splattered surgeons and even one stilt-wearing, bra-toting male nurse (don’t ask), there was an air of anticipation surrounding TR Warszawa and their Halloween performance of Nosferatu. Not usually a fan of vampire stories myself (I’m yet to be bitten by the Edward Cullen bug, so to speak), even I was hopeful of being spetacularly terrified; for if ever there’s a time to see a play about vampires, it has got to be Halloween. As luck would have it I was mildly horrified throughout the performance, but perhaps not in the way director Grzegorz Jarzyna intended.

Inspired by Bram Stoker’s gothic horror novel Dracula, the play possesses all the traits of your generic vampire story: a blood-thirsty Count moves into town, a beautiful and innocent young female becomes the victim of his fascination. Throw in a worried fiancé, a half-witted, fly-eating sidekick, a case of narcolepsy and a whole ‘lotta biting, then you have yourself Nosferatu. Whilst the basis of the vampyric myth holds real potential for an eerie, blood-curdling theatre thriller, TR Waszawa’s production lacked imagination, and any sense of thrill was lost amongst the comedy of technical errors that ensued throughout.

Performed entirely in Polish with English subtitles, I had qualms from the start (being the monolingual plebeian I am), but would have had no issue with understanding had the subtitles actually been synchronized with the performance. Furthermore, the translations were badly spelt and unreliable; during scenes of fast-paced conversation no subtitles seemed to appear at all, whilst in moments of silence paragraphs of English zoomed across the screen, thus leaving me confused and attempting to figure out what had just happened. A Polish-speaking spectator may not have had much better luck, as various microphone fluffs ensured audibility was also a challenge.

The tedious opening dinner party scene sets the pace for the rest of the performance, which seemed to drag on longer than the lines at Alton Towers. Interspersed with oddly over sexualised dream-like sequences, the performance lacks drive; every scene seems to be an anti-climax to the last. Like sucking on a chocolate eclair but never actually getting to the chocolate, I felt myself continually wishing for the actors to ‘get to the good bit’. Unfortunately, that ‘bit’ never came. Compensating, perhaps, for the various lulls was the smoke machine, which seemed to go into eye-watering overdrive whenever a potentially eery scene commenced, masking the first few rows of audience in a veil of thick white fog. This was the first time I have ever been grateful to be sitting in the cheap balcony seats.

Whilst the actors were probably better than the production, the evening was half-hearted and disappointing, leaving much to be desired. Buried deep – and I mean deep – beneath the clichéd collection of lingering smoke, billowing curtains and heavy organ music was the exploration of suspension between life and death, science and myth, and light and dark. Unfortunately, the only thing that haunted me as I left the Barbican was the image of the male trick-or-treater with chicken fillets stuffed down his bra. I mean, that is chilling.