Critical Analysis Of Punchdrunk`s `the Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable`

Seven hundred audience members enter a disused post-sorting warehouse in Paddington and are told to leave their companions behind and to steer their own journey ⁱ. This is Punchdrunk s dizzying deconstruction of Georg B chner s play, Woyzeck, in their latest immersive performance - The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable. B chner left his fragmented text unfinished before his death in 1837. Punchdrunk further splinter his series of fragments into a whirlwind of physical theatre vignettes, relocated to Temple Studios , a 1960 s British outpost of Hollywood . Encountering a breadth of locations , including hotel rooms, a saloon bar and a trailer park, audience members are seemingly free to decoupage their way through the four-storied space.

On entering the performance arena, it is possible to admire the elegance of an immaculately recreated dressing table and, awed by the intricate set design, wait for the drama to arrive. Alternatively, the modus operandi could be to stick closely to one particular performer and attempt to piece together a logical plot line. The organising idea might be place or people. Either way, it soon becomes clear that the heart of the action will always be just beyond reach.

B chner s original story of a doomed soldier, who murders his unfaithful wife in a fit of jealousy, is bisected into two non-linear narratives, which play out simultaneously. In one, a jealous Hollywood actor, William, strangles his lover, Mary. In the other, it is Hollywood actress, Wendy, who stabs her lover, Marshal. Are there perhaps further hidden narratives beyond these two? Accompanied by a booming motion picture soundtrack, actors interweave and collide to enact hundreds of choreographed sequences two lovers fervidly dance on a car while a barmaid wistfully cleans glasses in a nearby bar. On another floor, the dark murder scene is repeatedly re-enacted on glittering sand dunes.

Audiences continually shape-shift. An episode performed one night to a group of five may be viewed by five hundred the next. A choice follows the end of each episode. Does one follow an actor or a space and which actor and which space? According to the company s director, Felix Barrett: "the audience is the camera floating around this dream. All we are doing is presenting loads of content like the unedited rushes for them to cut together. ⁱⁱ

Punchdrunk provide the thrill of shooting one s own cinematic extravaganza. This may be the reason why newcomers and avid fans alike continue to fuel the commercial success of the run. Here, there is no single writer, no paramount vision and, seemingly, no fixed agenda. Rather, performers, choreographers, dramaturges and designers appear to co-devise meaning. Novel messages are jointly constructed as seven hundred performances co-occur. Punchdrunk appear to provide groundbreaking spectatorial autonomy, reflecting the cultural precept that there is no such thing as objective reality.

For Barrett, the white masks worn by audience members provide the "fourth wall". The audience becomes anonymous and gets closer to the action . The masks, also acting as cinema screens, perhaps allow for a m lange of theatre and film spectatorship modes a theatre audience may affect performers, a movie audience cannot. Here, the fourth wall, the cinema screen, is concurrently hidden behind and also challenged, allowing for a subtle actor/audience power negotiation.

The Drowned Man invites participants to voyeuristically gaze at the Hollywood actors undergoing various forms of mistreatment. This echoes the exploitation of the working-class everyman, Woyzeck. A spotlight picks out the trembling body of one male performer, as a doctor chillingly probes him with a stick, forcing him to undress. The actors young and beautiful bodies are continually on display, as they frequently change costume. At times, spectators dominate, seeming to greedily trample feet, hunting down their chosen performers.

Yet, the allure of human flesh also keeps spectators stationary, captivated for fifteen minutes, a young actress luxuriates in a sensual dance sequence, crawling and leaping from trailer to trailer. It is unclear who is being taken advantage of. Spectators can be at the mercy of actors who have the power to whisper secretly in an ear or lead the way to another electrifying space. The cavernous rooms themselves loom threateningly, daring participants to explore them.

Whilst offering the illusion of total audience agency, it would seem that Punchdrunk do steer their audience from A to B, if subtly. During major sequences, black-masked ushers physically move people out the way, clearing space for dancing. There are seemingly endless possibilities around each dark corner. Trail a performer for an hour, but then expect to see her slip through a door that cannot be opened. Return a week later, and encounter endless actors, endless rooms and, perhaps, even endless floors. This is tantalising illusion. While the assemblage may be different on second viewing, the tools remain the same there are a fixed number of sets and fixed number of actors to discover.

Is Punchdrunk s spectatorial power play a novel art form or is it simply an extension of what is inherent in traditional theatre practice, the co-creation of meaning? Theatre by its very nature is ephemeral. No one performance will ever be identical to another it is always uniquely constructed in the imagination of each person viewing it, on each occasion they view it. The director may cut scenes from Hamlet or an understudy may play the lead one night positions in the round may allow for different visual framings and responses. In the case of The Drowned Man, the range of variables is, certainly, radically expanded. Rather than sitting together in one space and time with all its possibilities, Punchdrunk s audience wander around on a far, far longer and more flexible leash. Inhabiting this visceral rendition of the text may allow students to engage abstractly with B chner s themes and characters, complementing the more conventional viewing. Ultimately, the masks must be removed and the credits must roll as one is inevitably reined back to reality. Nevertheless, the heightened illusion of such complete and novel audience autonomy is riveting while it lasts.

i^ The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable, Punchdrunk, Temple Studios Paddington, London, Performances on 15 January and 22 February 2013.

ii^ Masters, T. (2013) Punchdrunks s The Drowned Man in theatre on a grand scale BBC News, 19 July, viewed 15 April 2014, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23329899