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“We initially targeted
underground car parks but it was going to be very prohibitive; you can
imagine the money they’d lose if they emptied the car park for seven weeks”
- Alex Poots, Manchester
International Festival director, The Guardian Guide.
It felt like a Kiss, Punchdrunk Theatre, Manchester International
Festival, July 2009
Have you ever had one of those dreams where you’re running down a long
corridor - low lights suspended from the ceiling offer little in the way of
real illumination and a man with a chainsaw is chasing you? If so then
you’ll find yourself experiencing a very real sense of déjà vu upon a visit
to Punchdrunk Theatre’s latest commission as part of this year’s Manchester
International Festival.
Located inside an empty office block on Hardman Square, the audience is
invited to step into a surreal dreamscape, where fiction and reality; utopia
and dystopia intermingle. Where Lee Harvey Oswald, Martin Luther King Junior
and Enos, the first chimp in orbit walk hand in hand amongst the spread of
aids, the threat of nuclear holocaust and dubiously motivated human
psychological experiments. With contributions by Blur’s Damon Albarn,
too, this is the story of the American rise to power, of CIA organised coups
and of political assassinations.
Initially, the audience play the role of voyeur, rooting through draws;
reading private reports and stepping through children’s bedrooms. But this
passive exploration of the American dream develops into a desperate search
for answers as you play the role of a lab rat inside an experiment straight
from the notebooks of behaviourist B F Skinner.
The installation aspect of this piece is largely a realisation of a film
created by BBC filmmaker Adam Curtis; the film being central to the piece
both as a point of inspiration and literally inside a cinema club situated
at the centre of the journey.
The disjointed narrative and moments of confusion do, to an extent, break
the spell of living out the nightmarish conditions. There are times when the
overwhelming darkness is a little too overwhelming and leaves you standing
in the pitch black wondering where to go next. Overall this experience is
beautiful, overwhelming, thought-provoking and terrifying in equal measure.
Mark Ellis
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