It remains an astonishing piece, still one of the very weirdest things I have seen, with a unique pungent flavour. It is mellower and more hypnotic, with a distilled, concentrated, beautiful melancholy. Quite astonishing.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Eonnagata
Eonnagata (see http://robingrebsonsguidefortheperplexed.blogspot.com/2009/03/eonnagata-sadlers-wells.html) is back at Sadler's Wells, remixed, choreography rewritten, and some of the more obvious technical difficulties fixed (you can hear the spoken parts, the narrative seems to flow better, and it all feels less wobbly.)
It remains an astonishing piece, still one of the very weirdest things I have seen, with a unique pungent flavour. It is mellower and more hypnotic, with a distilled, concentrated, beautiful melancholy. Quite astonishing.
It remains an astonishing piece, still one of the very weirdest things I have seen, with a unique pungent flavour. It is mellower and more hypnotic, with a distilled, concentrated, beautiful melancholy. Quite astonishing.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Clod Ensemble UNDER GLASS at the Village Underground.
I am back in the dark, another cavernous, high-ceilinged Victorian brick storage space, a former warehouse this time. Guided by ushers, we sit or stand or move as they tell us, following the rhythm of the light. All the performers (although specimen might be a better term) are encased in glass: rectanglar cages; an oversized jam jar; a giant test tube.
The superb lighting design introduce us to various characters:
a narrator, grey and faded but still elegant, a gossip, talking and talking away into her phone (who is on the end? Is there anyone listening?);
a pretty young woman in brightly coloured 50s clothes, but she is nervous and on edge and one thinks of Edward Hopper and Dennis Hopper and David Lynch;
a voluptuous woman, her naked belly oozing out over the top of her trousers, then pressed against the glass, water ripples at the bottom of her cage, is it rising?
a young woman, who we realise as the lighting changes is lying on patch of grass inside her cabinet;
a woman trapped inside a jam jar, insect like, she balances on her hands like they were the legs of a stalk, and flashes a scream; a Francis Bacon harpy made flesh;
an office worker, trapped in his office, battling the anglepoise and the routines of drudgery Sisyphus rolling his boulder up the hill;
a vamp on a pedestal in cocktail dress, lonely and forlorn; and
twins, or possible lovers, locked head to toe, like yin and yang, in a circular box, viewed by us from a circle of stools up above.
The text told by the narrator down the phone is by Alice Oswald and is really good – thankfully you get a copy on the way out. She talks of a village, but there is something strange about it, presumably rural, the village seems to be disintegrating, mired in death, as the woman reports what she sees and hears. The text has traces of Beckett and Alan Bennett, but also reminded me of Robert Ashley, it had a kind of symphonic quality.
We gather fragments of each person’s story, a sense of their idiosyncrasies and their pain, no mere ciphers or metaphors these.
This really is a superb performance piece, moving and profound, with real gravitas.
Lovers of Victorian freak shows and cabinets of curiosities, 1940s-1950s settings, steam/cyber punk etc will love this.
The superb lighting design introduce us to various characters:
a narrator, grey and faded but still elegant, a gossip, talking and talking away into her phone (who is on the end? Is there anyone listening?);
a pretty young woman in brightly coloured 50s clothes, but she is nervous and on edge and one thinks of Edward Hopper and Dennis Hopper and David Lynch;
a voluptuous woman, her naked belly oozing out over the top of her trousers, then pressed against the glass, water ripples at the bottom of her cage, is it rising?
a young woman, who we realise as the lighting changes is lying on patch of grass inside her cabinet;
a woman trapped inside a jam jar, insect like, she balances on her hands like they were the legs of a stalk, and flashes a scream; a Francis Bacon harpy made flesh;
an office worker, trapped in his office, battling the anglepoise and the routines of drudgery Sisyphus rolling his boulder up the hill;
a vamp on a pedestal in cocktail dress, lonely and forlorn; and
twins, or possible lovers, locked head to toe, like yin and yang, in a circular box, viewed by us from a circle of stools up above.
The text told by the narrator down the phone is by Alice Oswald and is really good – thankfully you get a copy on the way out. She talks of a village, but there is something strange about it, presumably rural, the village seems to be disintegrating, mired in death, as the woman reports what she sees and hears. The text has traces of Beckett and Alan Bennett, but also reminded me of Robert Ashley, it had a kind of symphonic quality.
We gather fragments of each person’s story, a sense of their idiosyncrasies and their pain, no mere ciphers or metaphors these.
This really is a superb performance piece, moving and profound, with real gravitas.
Lovers of Victorian freak shows and cabinets of curiosities, 1940s-1950s settings, steam/cyber punk etc will love this.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Regardless of History
Here's are some very odd pics I took at Cass on my mobile - its a Bill Woodrow piece called 'regardless of history'
Tunnel 228 - Punchdrunk
I had no idea what to expect as I gingerly made way down the (officially sanctioned) graffiti lined open tunnel that is Leake Street, the fresh air from the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Cass Foundation at Goodwood still in my system and more importantly as it would turn out, the images of the sculptures still pulsing around my head. 
I headed down into the arches.
Having donned my anti-Swine Flu surgical mask, and swept through the black curtains into a dimly lit room with the familiar, almost welcoming, ominous drones that tell you that you have crossed the portal into a Punchdrunk world, I was face to face with, no doubt about it, a sculpture, a very fine piece as it happens by Luke Montgomery called Heaven on Earth, an altar form perhaps, or a Neolithic slab for human sacrifices, winged by wire, backlit, with something spooky, like umbilical chord preserved in formaldehyde at its heart.
So I was in a kind of sculpture park, albeit the dark, evil twin of YPS and Cass. This was post-apocalyptic world and I was witnessing either the death of advanced capitalism or its ultimate success. The fat controller was seen being pleasured by a lapdancer in the ladies toilet (seen through slats in the door before they were slammed shut), and appeared as a mannequin overseeing the workers toiling below. And what toil. Running on a giant hamster wheel to generate electricity, or endlessly pushing trolleys along a bleak, and really long railway track.
The workers were dressed in identical uniforms, and moved lifelessly. They collapsed on the ground, and would then twitch into life as though being charged up by electricity. There was a touch of the Planet of the Ouds from Doctor Who.
Up above us, a row of books would collapse like dominos, triggering a system of swinging barrels and cogs and pulleys which in turn released a silver ball which ran along a track before dropping into a bucket near the giant wheel. The ball would be polished and replaced and then the whole thing would crank up again.
I found a room where, on knocking, a door was opened by a pale, thin, Victorian butler who told me “he’s not here. He’s gone to see Yoshuwaaaah” over and over again. By “he” did he mean the fat controller?
But the workers were few in number. What happened to the rest of humanity. Evidence seemed scattered about. Patches of grass marked by stones suggested graves. There was video of humans living in pods, a la alien, enslaved or waiting for salvation. The last few survivors of what? War, disease, or political enslavement?
Much of the art followed a cyberpunk/steampunk theme, with touches of Alien and Doctor Who thrown in. Vessels glowing with lights. A sinister dentist chair turned into a mechanical killing machine . A body was slumped over a table. Tiny shrunken buildings were dotted about the place.
So what exactly was going on here?
This was a collaboration between Punchdrunk, the Old and New Vics and various invited artists. The intention was to combine art and theatre, and give it a sinister, uniquely Punchdrunk theme. What I liked most about the art was how tonally consistent it was, so that you could at least start to patch together a sense of some narrative from these fragment. But it was difficult to really get so excited about the art pieces in the same way as I did say with Lynn Chadwick’s piece up at Cass, or the St Ives Room at Pallant House. And there was a kind of familiarity with much of it, as though the makers had seen a lot of what I have seen over recent years, from the spectral multi-artist show at Belsay a few years back to the weirder outreaches of Mimefest (various mad Russians at the ICA.)
I liked the Punchdrunk element, especially the workers. There was something of Gormley about them, like living sculptures. And if the purpose of the exercise was to explore how art and theatre can work together, then this suggested that the route through is to to do just that, not to have the artwork as a backdrop, set dressing, but an equal, kinetic part of the proceedings.
If much of the art did not or was not allowed to stand out on its own, it certainly contributed to the atmosphere and other worldy feel of the event. But I missed some kind of dramatic impetus, a sense of things building up.
On the way out, I was given a very good brochure about the event. I’m not sure if it would have been helpful to have known more before I went in.
Being in Chichester, I missed the whole London Paper controversy. Apparently there was a big feature in the LP, explaining what was what, and as a result the rest of the 15,000 tickets sold out in a couple of hours. Foul, cried the Guardian. London Paper readers do not deserve to go to Punchdrunk events, ranted the Guardian (now do you believe me about how awful the leftwing media is?!). It might return in the Autumn, as with all Punchdrunk stuff, it’s worth a second viewing. But in the meantime, the Punchdrunk team move to Manchester and I can’t wait.
PS apparently Metropolis was a big part of the inspiration for the event; not a film I’ve seen somehow, but a quick google talks of a “vision of a horrific future with a favoured elite living on the surface of the earth enjoying a life of luxury, and a vast army of nameless workers living in a grim underground city toiling ten hour shifts”.
Having donned my anti-Swine Flu surgical mask, and swept through the black curtains into a dimly lit room with the familiar, almost welcoming, ominous drones that tell you that you have crossed the portal into a Punchdrunk world, I was face to face with, no doubt about it, a sculpture, a very fine piece as it happens by Luke Montgomery called Heaven on Earth, an altar form perhaps, or a Neolithic slab for human sacrifices, winged by wire, backlit, with something spooky, like umbilical chord preserved in formaldehyde at its heart.
So I was in a kind of sculpture park, albeit the dark, evil twin of YPS and Cass. This was post-apocalyptic world and I was witnessing either the death of advanced capitalism or its ultimate success. The fat controller was seen being pleasured by a lapdancer in the ladies toilet (seen through slats in the door before they were slammed shut), and appeared as a mannequin overseeing the workers toiling below. And what toil. Running on a giant hamster wheel to generate electricity, or endlessly pushing trolleys along a bleak, and really long railway track.
The workers were dressed in identical uniforms, and moved lifelessly. They collapsed on the ground, and would then twitch into life as though being charged up by electricity. There was a touch of the Planet of the Ouds from Doctor Who.
Up above us, a row of books would collapse like dominos, triggering a system of swinging barrels and cogs and pulleys which in turn released a silver ball which ran along a track before dropping into a bucket near the giant wheel. The ball would be polished and replaced and then the whole thing would crank up again.
I found a room where, on knocking, a door was opened by a pale, thin, Victorian butler who told me “he’s not here. He’s gone to see Yoshuwaaaah” over and over again. By “he” did he mean the fat controller?
But the workers were few in number. What happened to the rest of humanity. Evidence seemed scattered about. Patches of grass marked by stones suggested graves. There was video of humans living in pods, a la alien, enslaved or waiting for salvation. The last few survivors of what? War, disease, or political enslavement?
Much of the art followed a cyberpunk/steampunk theme, with touches of Alien and Doctor Who thrown in. Vessels glowing with lights. A sinister dentist chair turned into a mechanical killing machine . A body was slumped over a table. Tiny shrunken buildings were dotted about the place.
So what exactly was going on here?
This was a collaboration between Punchdrunk, the Old and New Vics and various invited artists. The intention was to combine art and theatre, and give it a sinister, uniquely Punchdrunk theme. What I liked most about the art was how tonally consistent it was, so that you could at least start to patch together a sense of some narrative from these fragment. But it was difficult to really get so excited about the art pieces in the same way as I did say with Lynn Chadwick’s piece up at Cass, or the St Ives Room at Pallant House. And there was a kind of familiarity with much of it, as though the makers had seen a lot of what I have seen over recent years, from the spectral multi-artist show at Belsay a few years back to the weirder outreaches of Mimefest (various mad Russians at the ICA.)
I liked the Punchdrunk element, especially the workers. There was something of Gormley about them, like living sculptures. And if the purpose of the exercise was to explore how art and theatre can work together, then this suggested that the route through is to to do just that, not to have the artwork as a backdrop, set dressing, but an equal, kinetic part of the proceedings.
If much of the art did not or was not allowed to stand out on its own, it certainly contributed to the atmosphere and other worldy feel of the event. But I missed some kind of dramatic impetus, a sense of things building up.
On the way out, I was given a very good brochure about the event. I’m not sure if it would have been helpful to have known more before I went in.
Being in Chichester, I missed the whole London Paper controversy. Apparently there was a big feature in the LP, explaining what was what, and as a result the rest of the 15,000 tickets sold out in a couple of hours. Foul, cried the Guardian. London Paper readers do not deserve to go to Punchdrunk events, ranted the Guardian (now do you believe me about how awful the leftwing media is?!). It might return in the Autumn, as with all Punchdrunk stuff, it’s worth a second viewing. But in the meantime, the Punchdrunk team move to Manchester and I can’t wait.
PS apparently Metropolis was a big part of the inspiration for the event; not a film I’ve seen somehow, but a quick google talks of a “vision of a horrific future with a favoured elite living on the surface of the earth enjoying a life of luxury, and a vast army of nameless workers living in a grim underground city toiling ten hour shifts”.
Here are some "official" pics taken from the Guardian website.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Things to do in Chichester Part II
After Cass, I headed into town, to the Pallant House Gallery. A fusion of a Grade One listed Queen Anne townhouse and a neat clean modern building, Pallant House boasts one of the finest collections of modern British Art outside the capital.
One of the highlights for me was a St Ives room which matched some fine Bernard Leach (and other) pots with a Barbara Hepworth sculpture, a Ben Nicholson drawing, and a classic Alfred Wallis ship painting; so simple yet so rare to see these artists together.
They had a big Patrick Caulfield exhibition on, which I kind of whizzed through, finding nothing much to detain me.
The prints room too was good with an exhibition of pre WWII landscapes by Paul Nash, Ethelbert White and others.
Then it was off to the Oxmarket Centre of Arts for a selling exhibition of good work, most done by local artists and very reasonably priced. By this time, the Mrs had sauntered through her 25 miles and I was summoned to Goodwood racetrack to greet her as she jumped the final fence.
We ate like kings in Chichester by the way. Really good fish at the peculiarly named Dining Room at Purchase’s, a lovely open top mackerel sandwich on onion bread at the Field & Fork restaurant at Pallant House, and quite simply one of the best Indian meals I have ever had at Masala Gate. The fish pakora was sensational. My main course came in the kind of traditional meets modern style London restaurants often aim for and fail: a well cooked and flavoured piece of sea bass atop a tower of aloo sag, with a crispy pakora perched on top, and a drizzle of tomato chutney reduction. Marvellous.
One of the highlights for me was a St Ives room which matched some fine Bernard Leach (and other) pots with a Barbara Hepworth sculpture, a Ben Nicholson drawing, and a classic Alfred Wallis ship painting; so simple yet so rare to see these artists together.
They had a big Patrick Caulfield exhibition on, which I kind of whizzed through, finding nothing much to detain me.
The prints room too was good with an exhibition of pre WWII landscapes by Paul Nash, Ethelbert White and others.
Then it was off to the Oxmarket Centre of Arts for a selling exhibition of good work, most done by local artists and very reasonably priced. By this time, the Mrs had sauntered through her 25 miles and I was summoned to Goodwood racetrack to greet her as she jumped the final fence.
We ate like kings in Chichester by the way. Really good fish at the peculiarly named Dining Room at Purchase’s, a lovely open top mackerel sandwich on onion bread at the Field & Fork restaurant at Pallant House, and quite simply one of the best Indian meals I have ever had at Masala Gate. The fish pakora was sensational. My main course came in the kind of traditional meets modern style London restaurants often aim for and fail: a well cooked and flavoured piece of sea bass atop a tower of aloo sag, with a crispy pakora perched on top, and a drizzle of tomato chutney reduction. Marvellous.
Things to do in Chichester when your…
girlfriend is doing a 25 mile walk
Joy oh joy. Less than a week after my trip to the YSP I found myself in another superb sculpture park, this time the Cass Sculpture Foundation at Goodwood. This park is strictly contemporary, many pieces specially commissioned, so pieces do come and go.
The stand out work for me was Lynn Chadwick’s enchanting ‘ace of diamonds’, consisting of a diamond shape and a square with a triangle cut out, made of heavy stainless steel, which revolved in the breeze. One of the great joys of sculpture is a sense of the work unfolding before you eyes, as you wander around it, different angles revealing different aspects, and different applications of concentration giving rise to new insights. This piece inverses the process; it moves, and a seemingly never ending succession of new shapes emerge.
Joy oh joy. Less than a week after my trip to the YSP I found myself in another superb sculpture park, this time the Cass Sculpture Foundation at Goodwood. This park is strictly contemporary, many pieces specially commissioned, so pieces do come and go.
The stand out work for me was Lynn Chadwick’s enchanting ‘ace of diamonds’, consisting of a diamond shape and a square with a triangle cut out, made of heavy stainless steel, which revolved in the breeze. One of the great joys of sculpture is a sense of the work unfolding before you eyes, as you wander around it, different angles revealing different aspects, and different applications of concentration giving rise to new insights. This piece inverses the process; it moves, and a seemingly never ending succession of new shapes emerge.
I also loved Rob Ward’s enchanting glass ‘gate’ a piece that is there and not there.
Another favourite was Manfred Kielhofer’s ‘timeguards’, a scary piece, part religious icon, part Doctor Who, and strangely reminiscent of a carved candle I picked up in on a road trip many years ago now, from a weird Celtic folklore / new age museum somewhere between Inverness and Edinburgh.
The other piece that got me was Jonathan Loxley’s ‘portal’, a piece very much of two halves, one side whirling and scratchy, the other smooth and sensuous.
Against better inclinations, I was fascinated by Thomas Heatherwick’s ‘pavilion’. I’m a bit dubious when sculpture strays into architecture, but walking around the piece with its ever changing angles and reflections, I was convinced.
I also liked Keir Smith’s ‘stefano’, Wendy Taylor’s giant 'sycamore’, Helaine Blumenfeld's vaginalatrous 'spirit of life', and the wonderful Peter Doig like presence of David Worthington’s ‘yo reina’, a tiny white alien ship landed in the forest.
Animal Magic
Even if I say so myself, I've taken some pretty darn good photos of animals on my travels...
Return to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park II
With time to kill, and energy to burn after a mighty vegetable soup and huge baked potato in the café, I wondered the grounds of the YSP. Almost all the Henry Moore’s had changed since I was last here.
As I wondered about looking at the sculptures, the sheep wandered about looking at me. 
In the lower field, Sophie Ryder was exhibiting a collection of disturbing rabbit/women. 
I loved a sound installation in a nearby gazebo where odd noises were generated as you sat down or shuffled on benches.
It’s a magical place. As you wander about, you stumble upon, not fields of daffodils, but fields of sculptures. Each step reveals something new, or a different angle, or a different feeling. 
As I wondered about looking at the sculptures, the sheep wandered about looking at me.
In the lower field, Sophie Ryder was exhibiting a collection of disturbing rabbit/women.
I loved a sound installation in a nearby gazebo where odd noises were generated as you sat down or shuffled on benches.
It’s a magical place. As you wander about, you stumble upon, not fields of daffodils, but fields of sculptures. Each step reveals something new, or a different angle, or a different feeling.
Return to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park 1 - Isamu Noguchi
I knew I would kick myself if I missed the Isamu Noguchi exhibition at YSP. The closing date had already been put back once, and with the new end date fast approaching, I took a detour across the Penines on the way back from Old Trafford after the first leg of the Arsenal game.
Noguchi, feted in American and Japan, is little known here, even though anyone who was ever a student probably had a piece derived from his famous Akari lamps in their bedsits; remember those folding paper lampshades you’d hang over any going harsh lone lighbulb?
His work straddled many fields: as well as sculpture he worked in design, furnishings, stage sets and delicate drawings through to giant conceptual theme parks. This partly explains his obscurity in the West, where there is too strong a tendency to dichotomise art and craft. Because so much of his best work was functional, he couldn’t possibly be a serious artist, so the argument went!
This was a wonderful as well as major exhibition, the first ever in Europe, with pieces taken from every era allowing you to follow Noguchi's journey.
For me, the best pieces were the coffee tables. One in particular, in the corridor of the indoor exhibition, totally captivated me. It was a jet black L shaped slab, balanced on a soft coloured stone. The top of the slab was highly polished and two oval pools, one larger than the other, had been cut into the surface and filled to the top with purified water, so that the meniscus traced lines along the edge of the pool. Sublime.
The final and best room indoors was also breathtaking. Here was another coffee table, with part of the slab left unpolished, so that a rough raised crater grew up out of one corner. At the far end, flanked my monumental stones split and put back together again, was a raised wooden bench suggestive of Tori gates, supporting three small torsos. And in the corner, a lovely curvaceous stones, bold, yet carved so delicately.
The exhibition continued outside varying from seemingly barely worked chunks of rocks to a lovely Tori gate shape and a delicate spire.
All in all, marvellous.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Eonnagata - Sadler's Wells
For the first time in a long time, I have seen something so WOW! that I just had to write about it. To clear my head. To becalm the thoughts swirling about inside.
Eonnagata is about Charles de Beaumont, an 18th Century spy, diplomat, soldier, and transvestite. Someone neither male nor female, but somehow both and something else altogether. And it is a piece that is neither dance, nor theatre, but somehow both and something else altogether.
The work is a collaboration between dancer Sylvie Guillem, choreographer Russell Maliphant and “theatre-maker” Robert Lepage, with wonderful costumes by Alexander McQueen, but what brings all these disparate elements together is the quite breathtaking lighting design by Michael Hulls. Hulls lighting is so dynamic, atmospheric and dynamic it beggars belief.
Given the collaborators, it is tempting to fell that this is a piece which is somehow less than the sum of its parts, the dancing for example never achieves the explosiveness of Guillem and Maliphant’s previous piece “Push” , yet in a way the work achieves something else entirely, as though each of the makers have given up something to achieve something new, something unique, a new flavour, melancholic, introspective, mysterious.
Unique, yet it also reminded me of many of the best things I have seem over the years, the slow intense less-is-more hypnotic world of Butoh, the tai chi inflected movement language of Cloud Gate, the way Complicite segment the stage and define space within it, the lighting effects of Push, the theatrical magic of Philippe Genty, Charles Atlas’s superb lighting for Michael Clark. All of these and yet still something powerful, unique.
The Eastern sensations perhaps stem from the leap that Lepage made between Beaumont’s life of gender confusion and the Onnagata, male Kabuki performers who only ever play female parts. Another element of the hybrid intermingling of ideas: male / female, west / east, theatre / dance.
None of which is to say the work is perfect yet, and maybe it never will be. There were almost two many ideas, and some scenes felt a little rough around the edges. Occasionally the movements were a little awkward, uneasy even, and the sword fighting lacked conviction; there was even the odd fumble. But sometimes something which is not quite 100% can still be so much better than anything else in town.
I immediately wanted to see it again - it is in the nature of projects like these that they develop and mutate in performance. They are back in June and I’ve booked my ticket.
Monday, December 15, 2008
a curious little shop; Punchdrunk take on William Blake, for their Friends only
NB plot spoilers
In a little street in the West End, a curious shop has spring up. Clod and Pebble - House Furnishers and Engravings. There is little to see from the outside, just a sign, and a gold telescope in the window (previously it was a stuffed, black, Raven). Looking through the door from the street, you can just make out some furniture and the dull yellow glow of a lamp in the distance.
A bell rings as you open the door. Furniture is piled up all around; but a narrow path has been left to guide you inside. What you can see of the walls are covered in old documents, flyers, and photographs. Somewhere ahead of you, a music box is playing a Christmas tune. There is a smell in the air, essential oils, lavender maybe somewhere in the mix.
Beyond a pile of chairs, shielded from view by an old piano, is a parlour room, but you feel like you are intruding. So you wait by the door, until you remember that this is Punchdrunk, and fortune favours the intrepid.
The parlour is cluttered with all manner of objects, but there is still no sign of life. Then you notice an alcove at the back, and there you find a pale, unshaven man, reading a book. He says his name is Robert. He asks after your health, and says he has no watch, and relies on a goldfish to tell him the day. The goldfish swims in a large specimen jar with a tag marked Monday. Other jars, with tags for the rest of the week, surround this jar. He tells you of the fish’s magical properties, of its abilities to leap out of the jar, and to appear in the correct jar for the day of the week.
He takes you by the hand through a dark corridor, past a solitary candle. His mood changes as he stops underneath a swinging lamp. He asks for news of William, hopes that you can help him.
He leads you into a small, cold room, with a low ceiling. There are two wooden chairs placed opposite each other, separated by a table. On the table is a wooden mirror frame, but no mirror. You sit opposite him, you look at him and he looks at you through the empty frame.
He tells you of his brother William, how close they were, as close as close can be, and how one day a figure came through the snow and took him away. You mirror his hand movements, he clutches you hand to his heart. Ominous drones grow louder, so does his voice, echoing against the ceiling. He falls into a kind of reverie.
He leads you to realise that he is the spirit of Robert Blake, and you further realise that it was Robert who was taken from William, not the other way round, and so what you are witnessing is the agony of separation from the other side, from the afterlife.
Then it goes quiet, except for the tinkling of bells. Something has visited. He brings you back upstairs, to the table where the goldfish was. The jars have gone, and instead there is an old box, with a note. You read the note – it is from William, offering comfort for eternity. Inside the box is a glove, which matches the solitary glove Robert is wearing.
He is happy and grateful, and it time for you to leave.
Notes
This Punchdrunk performance is for registered Friends of Punchdrunk only, and by appointment. Once you have made the appointment, you are sent a riddle with the location of the shop.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica: Death of Robert Blake
One of the most traumatic events of Blake’s life was the death of his beloved 24-year-old brother, Robert, from tuberculosis in 1787. At the end, Blake stayed up with him for a fortnight, and when Robert died Blake saw his “released spirit ascend heavenward through the matter-of-fact ceiling, ‘clapping its hands for joy,’” as Alexander Gilchrist wrote. The occasion entered into Blake’s psyche and his poetry. In the epic poem Vala or The Four Zoas (manuscript 1796?–1807?), he writes, “Urizen rose up from his couch / On wings of tenfold joy, clapping his hands,” and, in his poem Milton, plates 29 and 33 portray figures, labeled “William” and “Robert,” falling backward as a star plunges toward their feet. Blake claimed that in a vision Robert taught him the secret of painting his designs and poems on copper in a liquid impervious to acid before the plate was etched and printed. This method, which Blake called “Illuminated Printing,” made it possible for Blake to be his own compositor, printer, binder, advertiser, and salesman for all his published poetry thereafter.
The Clod and The Pebble by William Blake
"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."
So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:
"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."
In a little street in the West End, a curious shop has spring up. Clod and Pebble - House Furnishers and Engravings. There is little to see from the outside, just a sign, and a gold telescope in the window (previously it was a stuffed, black, Raven). Looking through the door from the street, you can just make out some furniture and the dull yellow glow of a lamp in the distance.
A bell rings as you open the door. Furniture is piled up all around; but a narrow path has been left to guide you inside. What you can see of the walls are covered in old documents, flyers, and photographs. Somewhere ahead of you, a music box is playing a Christmas tune. There is a smell in the air, essential oils, lavender maybe somewhere in the mix.
Beyond a pile of chairs, shielded from view by an old piano, is a parlour room, but you feel like you are intruding. So you wait by the door, until you remember that this is Punchdrunk, and fortune favours the intrepid.
The parlour is cluttered with all manner of objects, but there is still no sign of life. Then you notice an alcove at the back, and there you find a pale, unshaven man, reading a book. He says his name is Robert. He asks after your health, and says he has no watch, and relies on a goldfish to tell him the day. The goldfish swims in a large specimen jar with a tag marked Monday. Other jars, with tags for the rest of the week, surround this jar. He tells you of the fish’s magical properties, of its abilities to leap out of the jar, and to appear in the correct jar for the day of the week.
He takes you by the hand through a dark corridor, past a solitary candle. His mood changes as he stops underneath a swinging lamp. He asks for news of William, hopes that you can help him.
He leads you into a small, cold room, with a low ceiling. There are two wooden chairs placed opposite each other, separated by a table. On the table is a wooden mirror frame, but no mirror. You sit opposite him, you look at him and he looks at you through the empty frame.
He tells you of his brother William, how close they were, as close as close can be, and how one day a figure came through the snow and took him away. You mirror his hand movements, he clutches you hand to his heart. Ominous drones grow louder, so does his voice, echoing against the ceiling. He falls into a kind of reverie.
He leads you to realise that he is the spirit of Robert Blake, and you further realise that it was Robert who was taken from William, not the other way round, and so what you are witnessing is the agony of separation from the other side, from the afterlife.
Then it goes quiet, except for the tinkling of bells. Something has visited. He brings you back upstairs, to the table where the goldfish was. The jars have gone, and instead there is an old box, with a note. You read the note – it is from William, offering comfort for eternity. Inside the box is a glove, which matches the solitary glove Robert is wearing.
He is happy and grateful, and it time for you to leave.
Notes
This Punchdrunk performance is for registered Friends of Punchdrunk only, and by appointment. Once you have made the appointment, you are sent a riddle with the location of the shop.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica: Death of Robert Blake
One of the most traumatic events of Blake’s life was the death of his beloved 24-year-old brother, Robert, from tuberculosis in 1787. At the end, Blake stayed up with him for a fortnight, and when Robert died Blake saw his “released spirit ascend heavenward through the matter-of-fact ceiling, ‘clapping its hands for joy,’” as Alexander Gilchrist wrote. The occasion entered into Blake’s psyche and his poetry. In the epic poem Vala or The Four Zoas (manuscript 1796?–1807?), he writes, “Urizen rose up from his couch / On wings of tenfold joy, clapping his hands,” and, in his poem Milton, plates 29 and 33 portray figures, labeled “William” and “Robert,” falling backward as a star plunges toward their feet. Blake claimed that in a vision Robert taught him the secret of painting his designs and poems on copper in a liquid impervious to acid before the plate was etched and printed. This method, which Blake called “Illuminated Printing,” made it possible for Blake to be his own compositor, printer, binder, advertiser, and salesman for all his published poetry thereafter.
The Clod and The Pebble by William Blake
"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."
So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:
"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
