What’s done cannot be undone

An old dilapidated office building abandoned for ruins was converted into an immersive installation and performance by the group Punchdrunk directed by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle. Loosely based on the story of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, SleepNoMore is a tribute to the speakeasy generation with a touch of evil inspired by Shakespearean story telling and characters; each swaying and moving to a surreal David-Lynch-meets-Electronic music foisting the audience into a sexual frenzy.

SleepNoMore allows audience to be anonymous and faceless (literally!) – wearing masks and moving in complete silence; the audience runs, walks leisurely or  follows actors through a maze of more than 100 rooms – each one specially designed to add to the supernatural theme of the whole performance.

Though one can see direct references to Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, King Duncan, Banquo, Malcom, Macduff and Lady Mcduff yet there were other characters and their own stories more refined and developed – each had an arch. Malcom never had too much of limelight in Shakespeare’s play however in SleepNoMore he sings a jazz number about his life – tears trickling down his face with an impish smile, looking at the audience breaking the 4th wall.

There were instances when the characters started touching the audience and made gestures of making love. A few audience members were given letters to deliver and a few were kissed and touched sexually. Well there was a scene where Macbeth falls down as I was following him and he looks at my eyes for a good 10 secs. I should have picked him up – I didn’t! Though I did mess around in other ways. I wrote down a letter to no one which might be lying there for someone’s amusement I guess -

Why do I always end up in situations like this when I am so ALONE

If anyone from the production discovers this – please give me a shout out! I can tell you the background of my story and why I wrote that

By pricking on my thumbs .. something wicked this way comes

I forgot myself when I followed the naked Macbeth to a room where thye showed the witch invoking apparitions showing Macbeth’s future just before he kills Banquo. The whole room was filled with odors of spice, wine and a confusing but sharp stench – very sexual and mysterious. When a couple of us followed Macbeth into the room, we were ushered to a corner and then the strobe lights started flickering along with the music of Ed Rush – “Reece” – heavy electronic music paced along with fractured visions of Macbeth dancing around with the witches and a naked man with a Goat head, blood on his stomach which Macbeth drinks with frenzy. One ghost carried a bloodied and just-born baby and another one carried a small tree depicting the walled garden.

I can never forget such a combination – strobe light, blood, sex, surreal imagery and sensual stench. I played around with my hand under the strobe light and felt the immediate need to install some in my own house. Everyday will be a surreal experience – replace the Electronic music with Jazz on one day, heavy metal on another or drum & bass on any given Sunday.

Courtesy: New York Times

Actor Nicholas Bruder who played Macbeth moved me in the last scene – for a man who thought he was invincible, for a man who could do whatever he wanted, for a man vain and proud – he showed resignation – resignation to fate and this whole world that came crumbling down – depicted by a confused and insidious smile followed by fear.

There were things that could have been better. Members of the audience could have been less confused and more decisive as to what they wanted to do. Because of their sluggishness I couldn’t run and catch up with Macbeth for a few scenes (as you might have correctly guessed, I followed Macbeth in this visit).

The set design by Felix, Livi Vaughan & Beatrice Minns was mind bending – specially the children room with headless babies, the apothecary room, the rest rooms, the parlour … something suffocating yet thrilling.

Courtesy: Go.com

Dance performances were mostly ballet and jazz. However, there were signs of other modern dance forms which I was not aware of.

Being in a place which resembled Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ (yes.. a lot of people will tell you when you get in – but honestly it’s only for those masks and nothing else is remotely close to an orgy), getting blood sprays (paint) on my shirt, locking eyes with actors and following them, seeing actors unfazed by audience staring at their naked bodies, witnessing violent scenes like murder and the one where Macbeth kills the pregnant Lady Macduff and a surreal strobe-light dance to heavy electronic music which was so anachronistically placed in a speak easy set up – it will be insane of me to say I liked it … but yes I loved it …

it smelled like sex but looked like blood and tasted like sweat … that was Sleep No More for me … what will it be for you?

I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited
But I couldn’t stay away, I couldn’t fight it.
I had hoped you’d see my face and that you’d be reminded
That for me it isn’t over.

‘Randy Described Eternity’ – this song explains, in its out-of-the-box quirky way, what eternity means (http://www.threeimaginarygirls.com/node/4157) .. I wish youth and innocence were as eternal as hope ..

Of all songs, which would describe my last day of 20s, I chose ‘Randy Described Eternity’ (Thanks @Christopher)

“every thousand years
this metal sphere
ten times the size of Jupiter
floats just a few yards past the earth
you climb on your roof
and take a swipe at it
with a single feather
hit it once every thousand years
`til you’ve worn it down
to the size of a pea
yeah I’d say that’s a long time
but it’s only half a blink
in the place you’re gonna be”

Given this context, I wish I had exercised some indiscretion in my life if not at 20s but at least in my teens.

My case is the worst – worst case of the ‘ugly girl’ making decisions as a ‘pretty girl’ … Sigh and it’s too late …

#Day 16 - "You have reached 7 days of battling it out" - Achievement unlocked

Completely got derailed here. But cut me up for throwing cliches here – Without mess, life is uninteresting. If I were to live a Disney life (the good cute ones and not the evil-subliminal-adult type fairy tale) I would kill myself.

Whether I enjoy this messy life – if I say yes, it will be a cute Disney answer. Answer is ‘no’! It’s painful – it hurts and sometimes you stop functioning like one of those Terminator robots – when their corneas dim out as soon as  their power is usurped. But without these kinks in one’s life… it will be a boring constant routine of fun times… except for getting laid everyday at will – that will be awesome and I would say a completely interesting life …

I like these lines -

Open up the sky this mess is getting high

its windy and our family needs a ride

I know we’ll be just fine when we learn to love the ride.

I know we’ll be fine when we learn to love the ride

I know we’ll be just fine when we learn to love the ride.

Here’s a preview of this song:

Here’s an excerpt from the poem ‘Shropshire Lad’ shared by Ratnesh (a friend from B School) in 2006.

“Oh, when I was in love with you

Then I was clean and brave,

And miles around the wonder grew

How well did I behave.

And now the fancy passes by

And nothing will remain,

And miles around they’ll say that

I Am quite myself again.”

By now, you’d have got what I meant by a circle. Sometimes we get stranded on the same spot where we start from. If radius is time, circumference is the experience – the entire time frame spreads out itself as a continuous events curve. Pi – your disposition towards the event (happiness and misery or shall I say positive or negative with some sort of fuzziness??)

Smaller circles helps. You have a smaller radius – so it completes sooner. The lesser the time the involvement in the event itself is less.

The area of the circle = time * time = how affected are you by the event.

In the poem, the person goes through happiness and then comes back to where he was – miserable. In another example. the person goes through miserable time and then comes back to where he was – happy.

Honestly, I don’t know which person am I – don’t know whether I am happy now or in utter misery. All I know that, the time variable was small enough this time to make my happiness/misery too heightened.

Am I kidding?