Breaking the fourth wall

Over the years, I’ve experienced a few works in the genre known as “immersive theatre” and several of my international theatre critic colleagues regularly mention British company Punchdrunk as among the most prolific in this particular style. I finally caught up with the 13-year-old troupe in London and their “The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable” is a theatrical event so magical that I’d love to experience it all over again.
Proof that immersive theatre is now a major genre, Palgrave-MacMillan has recently published a book by Josephine Machon titled “Immersive Theatres: Intimacy and Immediacy in Contemporary Performance”.
In this book, the producer of Punchdrunk Enrichment, a programme set up by the company to work with schools and communities and reach out to young people, describes immersive theatre “as entering a full world, you’re surrounded on all sides, it’s three-dimensional, you’re within a real space where there could be sound, smell and taste; all your senses are engaged.”
The company’s founder and artistic director Felix Barrett adds, “It’s the empowerment of the audience in the sense that they’re put at the centre of the action; they’re the pivot from which everything else spins. It’s the creation of parallel theatrical universes within which the audience forgets that they’re an audience, and thus their status within the work shifts.”
In their latest, and grandest work to date, “The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable”, Punchdrunk turned the entire former Royal Mail depot next to Paddington Station into a fictional Hollywood movie studio, named it Temple Studios and gave it a 1960’s ambience.
We were each given a mask as we took a lift up to the top floor to explore the space and witness the action by wandering from one room to another at will. The characters were easy to identify: they were the only ones not wearing masks.
Inspired by Georg Buchner’s “Woyzeck” and Nathanael West’s “The Day of the Locust”, “The Drowned Man” had a few major characters or film stars, whose photos were posted on the walls, probably to remind us that if wanted to follow the main plot, we should look for them. But there were also many more minor characters involved in their own sub-plots, on movie sets and in their dressing rooms and so on, which were no less engaging. After all, this was a movie studio and we film buffs were naturally curious to learn what goes on behind the scenes.
The masked audience members were allowed to get up close to the actors, who never lost their concentration despite the unusual distance, for example, reading a note in which one of them was engrossed over his shoulder. My favourite moment was when a character left the room and I had to decide whether to follow him or stay in the room with her, hoping that another character would come in. After a while, I came up with a personal agenda – always follow a woman – and this became more entertaining when many women were in a scene and they left through different doors.
About two hours into the experience, I was pondering asking a stage manager, discreetly dressed in black and present in every room, where I could find the exit. By then, I was tired and assumed I’d watched all the scenes and been to all the rooms.
Fortunately, I changed my mind and decided to take a different path, this time watching some scenes from another perspective, following different characters and occasionally checking out the authenticity of every piece of prop, furniture, costume and accessories in each small room.
My experience became more immersive when I helped a former diva character open a door. She held my hand tightly and we walked together from one room to another for about 15 minutes, after which she led me to the stage where the final scene was taking place. Remarkably, despite the different paths taken by members of the audience over the past few hours, Punchdrunk deftly made sure that everyone was there for the grand finale, a fitting celebration of the troupe’s immaculate creativity and our individually unique experiences, which were far more significant than stories they wanted to tell.

JUST EXTENDED
Previously scheduled to close on December 31, “The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable” now continues until February 23. Shows are daily except Monday at Temple Studios.
Visit www.PunchDrunk.com.