I was such a huge fan of Punchdrunk's Masque of the Red Death that I went to see the production four times before it closed. To some degree I regret that as by my final trip I felt like I'd seen too much and started to see how the magic was really done.
However it was great glee that I received an e-mail from Punchdrunk over the 2008 christmas period letting me know of a small free performance they were putting on specifically for people on their friends mailing list.
Called Clod and Pebble, we were given little but a handful of rhymes and a link to a booking website where I was asked to choose a specific day and time at which I would attend. I quickly grabbed a slot and was left to wonder for the next couple of weeks exactly what I was getting myself into.
When the day came for me to attend my booking I'll admit I was a little nervous. While Punchdrunk's performances have always been fairly personal and interactive, usually you are given the ability to be one amongst a crowd. This however seemed to be a time-slot just for me.
Amidst the trendy shops of London's Newburgh Quarter was the inconspicuously dressed up Clod and Peddle store front. The shop was conveniently being ignored by the thousands of Christmas shoppers wandering about on this particularly cold night. Finally when my time slot finally arrived I wandered inside and found myself inside another Punchdrunk world.
Like Masque of the Red Death the store was dressed in intricate detail and clutter of 19th century England. Old wooden furniture was piled up against the walls full of old books and trinkets, evidence of a life of hoarding every minute detail. As I moved further into the shop the walls were covered in pinned notes and faded photographs. I could have spent hours analysing the detail they'd put into crafting this amazing little pocket of the past, but that wasn't the point of all this.
At the back of the shop was a man reading a book. My e-mail had told me to tell the man I was looking Robert. He asked me to wait for a moment while he finished his page and then the performance begun. He talked to me as he led me down into the basement of the middle, sadly I don't recall all the details of the conversation but I remember being almost dumbfounded every time he asked me a question unsure how to respond in the face of a play asking for my direct input.
In the basement we sat face to face with an empty picture frame between us, the room dimly lit by candles. Here I was told the tragic tale of two loving and inseparable brothers forcibly separated by illness and death. The tale itself was poetically told and with the ambiance and the background music made the experience incredibly dramatic. When the most dramatic moment came he held my hand to his chest so I could feel his beating heart, a more personal theatre moment I have never had.
Finally we were interrupted from a noise upstairs, rushing up we were greeted with a surprise message of good will from his departed brother. Being involved in what had felt like such an intimate story managed to get through my usual barrier of cynicism and enjoy the joy of this "christmas miracle". On this high note I was led to the exit and given a piece of holly with a "Merry Christmas from Punchdrunk" tag attached, and I emerged back into contemporary London with a smile on my face.
So overall this was a shorter more focused piece than Masque of the Red Death, but it's one on one nature made it more moving and unforgettable. I know Punchdrunk have been in a period of R&D and as the first thing to come out of that I was very impressed. While an experience like this might not scale up well to a larger audience I almost don't care because I got to be a part of it myself and enjoy the unique time I had in that little store.