Queen of the Splitseam

I won't just write about The Drowned Man, I promise. But it's still pretty much the only thing I think about.

[queenofthesplitseam]

Inferno questions

It looks like this time there are three?!

Given what happened with Mayfair, is there any reason to think they might cancel one?

Also, for people who have been to a weeknight party, do they tend to be less fun/worse atmosphere than weekend parties?

Looking to travel in from out of town and want to plan my trip.

[queenofthesplitseam]

Yeah, they're fun. But can they make you feel something?

There’s not much I can add, I think the likes of @drinkthehalo have already said most of what there is to say, and I agree wholeheartedly. But I have put a few points below.

1. I love being lost in another time, another place - I want a complete escape from the real world, not just to augment it. 2. I have been so moved by the stories of the characters in Punchdrunk’s shows - I’m never going to be moved when it’s me in the centre of it. 3. I adore getting lost in another world, in another person’s story. I love the childlike feeling that suspending my disbelief like that gives me, but I’m too old to play pretend games. 4. Great art is meaningful, it makes you feel something, games are fun but I’ve never had a game affect me in the way that art can. 5. Potentially one of the reasons games can’t move me in this way is because games are competitive - if you’re focussed on levelling up it takes you out of the story* - I’m sure we all know how annoying it is when it feels like there’s a competition for a 1:1 (in my opinion one of the worst parts of a show), will the whole show feel like this? 6. Games have objectives - I don’t want to be told to do something to level-up, I want to be selfish and do whatever I want. I want agency, and isn’t that what Felix also wanted for us once upon a time?

*I’m probably missing the point on this one, I’m not sure how important the story is to Punchdrunk any more.

[thefoolsloop]

I’m afraid the masquerade may be over after all

It’s my fourth Drowned Manniversary. The memories have faded badly; while the music can still trigger recollections of… something… I no longer feel as strongly the immensity of emotion that I experienced. I remember that I felt, but I barely remember what I felt. This is natural, and unsurprising. My experiences in New York and (especially) Shanghai have helped to deliver an extra hit of the Temple Studios magic, but I can’t kid myself that SNM - despite its many qualities - can match the huge, overwhelming world of the studios and their denizens.

And I’ve been one of the lucky ones, able to enjoy PD productions - McKittrick, McKinnon, ACO, a bit of Silverpoint - since the curtain closed on the studios. Some people have been left starving for over three years. When PD announced that a new show was opening in London - well. the audience response spoke for itself. A heavily oversubscribed ballot, badly managed, led to an outpouring of emotion which can only be triggered by something which is filling a huge hole in people’s desires.

As the production is still ongoing, I don’t wish to say more about Kabeiroi at this moment. But I will say that it was not what I was expecting, and it did not satisfy the hunger that has gnawed away at me since I last threw the rose. However, it did prompt further questions in my mind as to where Punchdrunk is going, and what we can expect from it in future.

Keep reading

[queenofthesplitseam]

Couldn’t agree more. I loved the scale of TDM - I feel SNM will never be able to achieve the same levels of cinematic epic-ness for this reason.

Also, as someone who went to TDM/Punchdrunk for the first time and didn’t ‘get’/like it, I think that in my case it was less to do with the size and more to do with lack of information. I’m not talking huge spoilers, but more practical things like explaining that there are 3 chances to see everything and explaining that every character has a complete storyline. I went the second time armed with this information and it utterly transformed my experience, or rather enabled me to transform my own experience.

[queenofthesplitseam]

An open letter to Punchdrunk

Dear Punchdrunk,

I got unlucky with Kabeiroi. Well actually, I didn’t get unlucky, I just didn’t get lucky. Despite attempts at 2 ballots and the general sale, I didn’t manage to get tickets. But then again, neither did my mum, my dad, my boyfriend or my friend.

But to be honest, my sadness at not getting tickets was actually less than my sadness at the announcement of the show in the first place. To hear about an immersive ‘on the streets of London experience’ didn’t sound like your sort of thing, partly because there are so many other companies doing something similar. I know that you want to progress and keep your audience on their toes, but my concern was - could it be that in trying so hard to not be like yourselves you’ve ended up like everyone else?

In a way I was lucky, I was able to at least try for tickets to Kabeiroi, and if I had got tickets would have been able to make the vast majority of slots. The same doesn’t go for others. I know you had more ‘accessible’ shows, but what about those who couldn’t ‘access’ the show because they couldn’t take an afternoon off work at short notice, or even a day or two if they didn’t live in London? What about those who are of a nervous disposition, or not fit enough to run around the city? For what usually feels like such an inclusive company with such an inclusive community around it, it all felt very exclusive.

I know you don’t owe me, or anyone else, anything. It’s not that I feel entitled, but I do want to make a point that it’s sad to see a company with such a devoted fanbase (many of us travelling across continents just to see your work) make work that so few will be able to experience.

No theatrical experience has ever meant more to me than those created by Punchdrunk, and I know I’m not unique in this. For me, it started with The Drowned Man then went on to two versions of Sleep No More across multiple cross-continental trips. I love the format of those shows that you created, they’re your ‘thing’, your ‘USP’, your signature product. And with every passing year of no new ‘traditional’ Punchdrunk show in London, I become more and more worried that we’ll never get one again.

I know some people criticise you for using the same format, but no one criticises any traditional theatre for using the ‘proscenium’ format over and over again. No one goes to a production at The Globe and says “Well it was okay, but that whole ‘stage’ thing felt a bit derivative”. And I know that you’re capable of progressing within that format too, comparing the Shanghai and New York Sleep No Mores shows how you can progress even within the same storyline / world.

I guess, what I want to say is that I hope this isn’t the end of the Punchdrunk that I fell in love with. One day I hope to see a new show of yours (or old, I’d love you to remount The Drowned Man), that creates these vast worlds in which I can escape these busy streets of London. But for now, I suppose I say thank you for everything I was so lucky to experience, and maybe we can never go home any more.

Sincerely yours

[queenofthesplitseam]

Anyone happen to know where Sexy Witch's Shanghai dress is from?

Just on the off chance...

[queenofthesplitseam]

Race Row on Mount Everest: Sherpas Square Off Against Racist Western Climbers

The documentary ‘Sherpa’ captures an intense battle between Sherpas and entitled Western climbers—including one very racist American.

[queenofthesplitseam]

So Sleep No More is kind of to blame for the tag invasion

Interview with Mark Gatiss:

“The episode was originally going to be called ‘The Arms of Morpheus,’ which, of course, is a classical allusion. He was the god of dreams. But then I thought… we had kind of forgotten about the Punchdrunk show Sleep No More [a 2011 Broadway production by British theater company Punchdrunk]. But Macbeth is my second favorite Shakespeare. I’ve always loved it.“

http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2015/11/doctor-who-13-things-you-may-not-know-about-sleep-no-more-by-mark-gatiss/

[queenofthesplitseam]

Random guy in car: "Can I have you? Can we share each other? Intimately, or casually..." - the man's a poet!

[poorlydrawnpeople]

*sees a dog* god i hope he thinks im cool

[queenofthesplitseam]

How I always imagined Tuttle’s 1:1 to go. DON’T ANYONE CORRECT ME.

[adidasglitter]

[travelwedo]

I see posts like these a lot, and they all seem to disregard one thing: the [male] World Cup is *the* biggest athletic event in the world. It gets viewership and sponsors like no other, so even if women were assigned the same pay as men in percentage of the total money available, they would get less, because there is less money in their game. Tweets like this one do not even begin to address the reasons why that is so. Everybody wants to be all cool and feminist, but empty soundbites get boring very quickly.

[queenofthesplitseam]

I can't believe it's been a year. Not because the memories haven't started to fade - they have - but because it still means so much.

[whatshouldwecallme]

Showering with someone

[queenofthesplitseam]

“ George's son had done his work so thoroughly that he was considered too good a workman to live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at twelve o'clock that same day -- another instance of the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow out a train of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly consistent conduct in a world made up so largely of compromise.” - Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

If I wrote an autobiography, it would definitely be called ‘Dogs and Other Philosophers’

[queenofthesplitseam]

Ed Warner’s Miguel flirting with half the audience during the hoedown.

[queenofthesplitseam]

London Crowd LIFTS Double Decker Bus Off Injured Unicyclist

The astonishing moment a crowd of people lifted a 12-tonne double decker bus off a trapped unicyclist has been captured on film. A man was knocked off his unicycle in Hoe Street, Walthamstow at ar

My thoughts when reading this: “Wow, they lifted a bus, that’s amaz... WTF, A UNICYCLIST?!”

[queenofthesplitseam]

Always forget how good this is.