Apollo and Cassandra are in the tenement square. She has rebuffed him for the last time. She dances to his tune, now. Writhing in his fury, she is flung and circled at his every whim. She learned how to use the gifts he gave her quickly: too quickly. Her power for prophecy is formidable, even against the one who gave it to her, able to escape his arrows before they had flown. But he has her trapped now. Her talent may be formidable, but no one will ever know it. No one will believe.
She twists in his nets, his anger shaking through her limbs.
Her face twists in anguish, in breaking.
His control slips, just for a moment. Cassandra falls against him. She clings to his body, her face pressed to his chest, and Apollo loses his grip on his vengeful arrows. His fingers find something else. Something far more damaging.
Pain. Devastation. Adoration falling over a cliff to destruction.
Apollo’s fiery temper is washed over by the waves of grieving loss. His vengeance is dashed against the rocks of his sad humiliation.
He lowers her onto the bench. The other seer is here, he can always feel when one of his is close by.
And he has one more gift to give.
Based on Georges Hann as Apollo and Ingrid Kapteyn as Cassandra.
If you love beautiful and emotional storytelling as well as incredible dance, do yourself a huge favor and see Ingrid Kapteyn & Tony Bordonaro in The Pigeon and the Mouse.
Get tickets for Sunday’s show here.
Also, I can’t get The Labyrinth Song by Asaf Avidan out of my head.
“Oh Ariadne, I am coming.
I just need to work this maze inside my head.
I came here like you asked
I killed the beast
That part of me is dead.
Oh Ariadne, I just need to work this maze inside my head
If only I’d have listened to you
When you offered me that thread...”
A love story about leaving home. | Check out 'The Pigeon & The Mouse' on Indiegogo.
Support New Work from Tony B and Ingrid K
Two Sleep No More alums are at it again creating a new duo dance piece called “The Pigeon and the Mouse” to debut in NYC in January 2020. If you can, please donate to their Indigogo. $100 will get you two tickets to the show. I know they’d be truly grateful for support from the fandom. Thanks!
The Macduff bedroom — the perfect place for the loving couple to ready themselves for a night out
The fifth floor
Feathers blowing around Malcolm’s office
Red neon and broken chairs
The rope web
Secret passages
The People
Miranda Mac Letten and Tang Tingting — an outstanding duo — fierce competitors on the fourth floor, calm and calculating partners on the fifth
The physicality of their transformations — one emerging from the water with a great spew of liquid, every limb tense and shaking, the other learning to walk, from gliding around the forest to the first shaky steps to owning her human form
Ingrid Kapteyn’s Lady Macduff — sweet and innocent, giggling at the effects of the drug, so excited at the prospect of a new baby
Miranda’s Sexy Witch, simultaneously the strongest and most vulnerable witch I’ve seen, breaking down in the Macduff suite, shaking with fright after leaving the rep bar, but always regaining the level-headedness with which she plays Macduff, smiles connivingly at his wife, and casts everyone under her spell
Lily Ockwell’s Lady Macbeth, so powerful and striking, she immediately commands attention in the ballroom; alone in the bedroom, the cracks begin to show, and in the walled garden, the walls crumble — an alarming descent into madness
Tony Boy, Fania Bald, Miranda Sexy — as soon as the cast was announced I dreamed of this trio, and it was as good as I had imagined
Emily Terndrup’s Hecate — a true queen, her cackle piercing the loud beats of the rave, her intense stare surveying her minions’ actions
The Changes (small and large)
Agnes actually leaving Malcolm a seed
Danvers pushing away the chair that Lady Macduff used to climb up the shelf
The Porter’s Moonlight Becomes You dance
Speakeasy and the Taxidermist raiding Grace’s apartment
The witches gliding down the corridor to the rep bar
Distill'd by magic sleights: SNM Shanghai, show no. 5
**(Spoilers for Nurse loop again - and, again, not for 1:1s. Brief spoilers for Taxi and Lady Macduff, but nothing of substance. Details have been obscured or altered, as usual. A very long post here, I’m so sorry.)**
It’s over two weeks since my final Shanghai SNM. For some reason I’ve been reluctant to write this recap of my last show, as if perhaps putting the words onto paper (or screen) would erase the memories from my mind. With any luck, the opposite will be the case; because the last show not only produced some of the most magical moments of my time with Punchdrunk, but also delivered an emotional punch to the gut which caught me utterly by surprise. More on that, later.
My reluctance has also been spurred by the realisation that this will be yet another Miranda-heavy write-up. It’s only on reviewing my recaps (and those of other people) that I realise just how much I monopolised her on my visit, and how shamefully I overlooked Ben, Jude, Daniel and others, with whom I would like to have spent more time (including several of the Chinese cast). Another five visits would perhaps have sufficed for me to get as much appreciation for the show as, say, @whenwillweawake, whose summary I commend to you (it’s more objective and less self-focused than mine).
But I didn’t have five more shows. And, in any case, Miranda was the main reason I came all this way. She rewarded my loyalty handsomely, but I can’t help feeling a little guilty. Not that I begrudge a second I spent with her; nor should anyone consider a second watching this supremely talented artist wasted. If you would prefer to watch her than read about her, I sympathise, but that’s all I have to offer.
It’s Sunday. The weather is hot, but not as roasting and steamy as Shanghai sometimes gets (so I’m informed). My regret at seeing the McKinnon for the last time is immediately exacerbated when, on entry, I get a Deuce. My first Deuce ever. Even in New York I was able to swap it out, but here the rest of my party have Aces and they are all people whose last show it is too, so I don’t really have a case. A bad omen?
Another bad omen - I’ve forgotten to check my phone into the cloakroom; obviously my mind is somewhere else. I have to endure the indignity of carrying my phone around in a little velvet bag strung over my shoulder. Throughout the show my bag slips, and I have to keep hiking it up over my back to get it out of the way. Seriously, folks - check your phone in. It’ll be quite safe and you’ll be spared a lot of annoyance.
My mask is tighter than previous nights and, despite its extra cord, I can’t get it to loosen enough to suit my stupidly big head. My perpetual problem. I briefly wonder if this is how the cast always pick me out - “ah, big head, must be @thefoolsloop.”
My Deuce, worthless in comparison to an Ace, sits in my pocket. My velvet bag is already irritating. My mask pushes my glasses into my eyes, uncomfortably. Is this going to be my first bad show here? Thankfully the magic of Punchdrunk is awaiting me. So - spoiler - no, it’s going to be magnificent.
Since Sam was Duncan last night I figure (correctly) that he’s going to be Taxi tonight. Upon exiting the lift, I search for him, then realise he must be in the new scene which I eulogised about in a previous write-up. Sure enough, I catch him there - he is barely recognisable, but he’s participating with more gusto than I’ve seen Sam display before, and his pairing with Olly again awakens TDM memories. But suddenly he disappears (I later learn how), and I’m left in front of an excellent scene which I enjoy very much, but don’t want to watch just now.
I hurry to his shop - yes, there he is. He’s removing a sock from his head (it’s not a sock, but if I tell you what it is it’ll destroy the impact of the scene). We’re alone in the room, and I wonder if he recognises me. He fiddles with a few items, then extends his hand. This is my first 1:1 with Sam since he thrust an orange into my face, but my hopes for something as violently compelling are dashed. Instead, Sam’s 1:1 is whimsical, lugubrious - at times he pauses with such melancholy that I almost corpse. This Taxi is not the ambiguous agent of evil found in the McKittrick, but a weary man accepting that he is controlled by fate and inevitability. When I’m confronted with a choice, I find the McKittrick’s rather delightful option has been replaced by a strictly Chinese alternative which isn’t nearly as palatable. Oh, well.
Sam concludes the 1:1 by guiding me out into the rep bar through a passage I don’t recognise, and this is where things start to go wrong. The rave is gearing up: the thumping has started. I literally cannot stay in this room. As I emerge, I bolt for the door. Sam, the spirit of Stanford alive in him still, seizes me by the shoulders and forces me into the room, further away from the door (it’s a great spot to watch proceedings - if only I could). Just as I was complicit in Frankie’s initiation in Temple Studios, so I am to be complicit in the witches’ sabbath in the McKinnon.
Except I can’t. I wonder how Sam will deal with a seizure? Maybe he’ll make notes, so as to incorporate it into his Duncan loop? But I can’t indulge him - my only thought is, I have to get out of here NOW. Sam will pick up that something is wrong, surely?
Starting to panic, I bang on the hand gripping my shoulder. I shake my head furiously. I’m about to break both character and the rules by shouting at him, “Sam, I can’t stay here!” when he twigs. He releases me, and I shoot for the door, just in time before Macbeth arrives and the strobes start.
(I don’t know how Punchdrunk can accommodate people with photosensitive epilepsy without spoiling the experience for everyone else; it’s something I want to discuss with them.)
Recovering from my near-miss, I brush myself down in the corridor and take some deep breaths. I’d like to continue with Taxi’s loop, but Sam isn’t in the shop. At this point, I remember I need to be somewhere else.
Flashback to the previous evening. As I recounted in my last recap, I spent a wonderful few hours with the cast post-show, in which I discussed all kinds of things with all kinds of people. Miranda and I enjoyed a lengthy chat covering performance, politics, film, injuries, vegetarianism, the Chinese concept of personal space, and I don’t remember what else. In the course of talking to her I mentioned something that had always bothered me about 1:1s - performers, unknowingly, have always spoken their script into my deaf ear. As a result I’m lucky if I catch the text, let alone remember it.
I also remarked that I believed I now had a full house of interactions with her characters - all the Sexy Witch and Nurse 1:1s, dances, bed-making, kisses, whatever. She grinned, blew cigarette smoke out sideways, and said, “no, you’ve missed one.” Disbelieving, I asked her for details; all she revealed was that as the Nurse she’d been waiting to give me another 1:1, only to see me run off and follow another character. I put two and two together and realised the moment she must have meant.
The trouble is I’m now at the point where I know I can catch Miranda’s Nurse alone, if I hurry upstairs; and I can’t remember how long it is until the moment in question. Sorry, Sam, but there’s only one thing I can do now. I head for the fifth floor.
Sure enough, right when I expect, she emerges from a side room. Once again, just as she did on a previous night, she fixes me with the sarcastic stare and hands me the folded sheets she’s carrying. I follow her to the hospital ward, anticipating that the missed 1:1 will come presently.
(I found this image online, when googling ‘stage blood’ - it seems to unite many of the themes in the Nurse’s loop.)
**(SPOILERS FOR NURSE’S LOOP - NOT 1:1s, BUT CERTAIN INTERACTIONS)**
It doesn’t. I’ve misremembered the sequence of events in the loop. The result is that I go through almost an entire loop with her, just as I did on Thursday - making beds, opening bags, hanging up gowns. Only this time two things are different. First, I don’t mess anything up. Second, the tone of the interactions has changed. Now I’m no longer her unpaid slave (hold on, all slaves are unpaid, no?). Now we’re collaborators, co-conspirators. I have more of her trust than I had before. In the first 1:1, where before I was meekly committing my service, I now do so with confidence; in the second, I feel less like a subject and more like a... I want to say lover because of the nature of the 1:1, but that's not quite it... sadly, I can’t really explain without gross spoilers.
In the open, too, we’re more like partners in crime. I carry out instructions before she gives them to me. She directs me more with her eyes now, less with her hands. I feel that we are walking together, rather than me following her. This time - is it my imagination? - there’s a conspiratorial smile just lingering behind that severe look. At one point we’re in the hospital, where on Thursday she dipped her finger in a spread of blood and tasted it. This time, she takes my hand and dips my finger in the blood; then she does the same with her own. We look into each other’s eyes and, in perfect time with one another, taste it.
I’ve followed her for almost a full loop now, and nothing new has happened (in terms of scenes); I’ve got the timing completely wrong. However we finally find ourselves at the very moving scene I described in my second recap and, this time, I don’t get distracted. I wait for her, she appears - again, there’s that tiniest hint of a smile, as if to say, “shall we, then?” I take her hand and she leads me off.
Of what follows, I cannot give the merest hint. It is comfortably the most complete Punchdrunk experience of my life. By turns scary, intriguing and beautiful it wraps me in darkness, brings me out into the light of a new world, turns the theatrical into the cinematic, dazzles me with its virtuosity and the sheer imagination and execution it displays. Even if I wanted to describe it, words would be inadequate. I almost can’t believe it happened, as if it was a snatch of a half-remembered dream. What it took TDM three hours to achieve on a cool October night in 2013, this 1:1 achieves in minutes. To have seen it is a privilege; to have had Miranda share it with me is doubly so.
At the end, when she’s returning my mask, she leans over to whisper a parting shot. She breathes in - then pauses. I wonder what’s gone wrong. She moves her head to the other side of my head, then delivers the text into my good ear. She remembered.
How many performers would have recalled that tiny piece of information, relayed almost in passing the night before? How many performers would have cared enough to make a change to their usual delivery? How many performers would have remembered which ear it was?
When I first saw Miranda as Romola, all those years ago, sitting in the Seamstress’s office with the makeup smeared on her face, I thought: I don’t know what it is yet, but there is something very special about this artist. If you wonder why I devote so many words to her, well, this should exemplify it.
**(SPOILERS END)**
She bundles me out, and doesn’t reappear. I have one more moment with her to tick off - the walk-out - but still a bit of time to kill before the time comes for that. So I hurry down to the ballroom to catch what I know will be my last ever ballroom party scene.
It’s getting started as I arrive, and I position myself in the McKinnon’s equivalent of the mezzanine, right in the centre, the best view of all the action. The guests assemble, chat, pair off, dance, interact. And something comes over me. Perhaps it’s just the lingering effect of the 1:1, but suddenly I feel an emotional surge, much stronger than I felt the previous night. This scene is so beautiful, I love it so much. Every time I see it, I grow in admiration and love for it. What started out two years ago in New York as a useful point to decide who to follow, has turned into one of my touchstones of the entire production.
The emotion heaves, a wave coming straight from my heart. Standing in the midst of a crowd of strangers, watching this wonderful, magical scene, I can bear it no longer. The dam breaks. Tears form in my eyes, as they did the night before, but now the emotion punches through my defences. I start to sob, my body shakes. I’m in love with this scene. I’m in love with this whole show. What was an entertaining and marvellous experience in New York, has been transformed in Shanghai into a moving, overwhelming, glorious world of feeling. The McKittrick delighted my mind; the McKinnon has captured my heart.
I’m not a crier. Things rarely push me over the edge. I can count on the fingers of two hands things which make me cry in private, and on the fingers of one things which have made me cry in public. What is it that has happened here, in this dark basement, with jaunty trad jazz music playing, that is so compelling, so touching, that it bypassed my everyday reticence and evoked a response that would mortify me elsewhere? I don’t know. All I know is, this is what Punchdrunk try to do. They've done it to me now.
I have to look away from the scene, as the tears have blurred my vision. That seems to break the spell. I gradually recover my composure. What shall I do with the rest of my limited time here? I recall that Lady Macduff was one of my favourite moments in the McKinnon. Perhaps it would be a good idea to see if I can recapture some of the feeling I developed for her. In New York I had a touching 1:1 with Annie Rigney. I wonder if Ingrid can pull off the character with the same vulnerability and innocence displayed by Annie.
I follow her to her chamber, one of my favourite scenes in the McKittrick, where her battle with her addiction is played out against the nightmarish, repetitive soundtrack of her music box, a light, trite tune (’Wedding of the Painted Doll’) turned sinister, the tiny walls of her suite hemming her in. But here, in the McKinnon, the space is more open and her torment seems somehow dissipated. Also, the soundtrack has changed - still a music box, but a different tune, less threatening somehow. This is one of the areas where the new show has fallen short of its predecessor.
It’s not Ingrid’s fault; she puts the same passion, desperation and guilelessness into her performance that Annie had (and my glimpses of Xu Huiting on other nights suggest she is also superb in the role). I find myself accidentally (honest!) standing in the right spot for the 1:1, and when it comes Ingrid is tender and eloquent, just as Annie was.
I don’t like ‘Goodnight Children Everywhere’, even though the scene it accompanies is genuinely moving, so I pass through the cemetery where Fred is awakening, spend a little time watching Daniel make a boat, then drift until it’s time to pick up Miranda again. I follow her and Tang Tingting as they once again, like evil twins, pass in lockstep through the rooms and corridors until they find themselves in the master bedroom, where it’s their job to set everything up for the next round of this perpetual tragedy.
Except something is wrong. There’s a man lying on the bed. He’s got a white mask on. The Nurse-Matron duo pause for a split second to absorb this, and give him time to move. He doesn’t. He may actually be asleep. They seem to shrug with their eyes, and carry on making the bed as if he wasn’t there. They tuck him in nicely, as he twigs what’s going on and collapses into giggles. I can’t see if he’s Chinese or Western, or if he’s one of the cast conducting a prank. I never do find out who he is.
Business concluded, Miranda turns and offers me her hand. We walk down together, our complicity renewed. When I trip on the stairs she reaches out to catch me, but we’re so synchronised now that a slight gesture is enough to assure her that I’m OK. She and Tang, again in perfect step with each other, lead me and another white mask out to the Manderley. Unsmiling, she unmasks and kisses me. I respond with nothing but a wink. Not breaking character, she stares at me for a beat, then walks off. I have not seen her since.
This has been my longest recap, and I must thank anyone who’s made it this far for indulging me. The McKinnon got such a grip on my emotions that I cannot simply recount a few observations about the show and pass an objective critical comment or two. Like a clumsy teenage poet, I must splurge.
Just as TDM did - though to a lesser degree, inevitably - SNM Shanghai worked its way under my skin, and woke emotions long dormant. And, just as at Temple Studios, at the centre of this awakening was a performer of breathtaking commitment and raw talent. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Thank you, Miranda. Thank you, Punchdrunk.
Laocoön approaches with silent steps. He reaches for Cassandra, his princess, his priestess, half-broken on the bench. He is almost there, almost able to touch her and reassure her that he understands. That he knows. He feels the pain of prophecy. He sees the bricks crumbling while the house still stands, and bears the weight of knowing it will fall. His children were lost long ago, but he sees them as if he will lose them again tomorrow. The past, the present, and the future is always so murky.
Apollo lifts his hand, and the seer is trapped. He can be useful for what needs to be done, but not like this. The God of Prophecy stretches himself, lithe and limber, and in his net, the seer stretches. Apollo’s fingers find his own neck, and behind him the seer claws at his skin. Together they peel reality upwards to reveal vision beneath.
Cassandra watches in broken horror as the man she’s known from a distance all her life sheds his coat. No one would believe her if she told them how he had shed his very skin before her eyes and her sister Polyxena - sweet, kind, playful Polyxena – was revealed in his place.
The very air glows gold, but Apollo will not show himself to her sister. He is only where she knows to look for him now as her sister is raised into the air by her feet, her body limp, her skin pale under the godly glow as she spins and slips to the ground.
Laocoön drags himself into the shadows, his body shaking. The Greeks are coming, and he feels their invasion as a blade to his chest. But there is nothing he can do to stop it. It is in the future, and it’s already done.
Based on Georges Hann as Apollo, Ingrid Kapteyn as Cassandra, and Rob McNeill as Laocoön
