Synopsis The legend of a man whose obsession leads him to part with his everlasting soul. Directions and easy travel information provided when booking. Parking available on site. Licensed Bar. The site is accessible to wheelchair users. Please inform the Box Office when booking. Contains some nudity. Not suitable for children under 12 years of age. Young people under 14 years of age must be accompanied by an adult. Faust is an indoor promenade performance lasting 3 hours in a continuous cycle of unfolding events. Patrons embark upon an individual journey and may stay inside the performance is very dark in places and requires active engagement in travelling across five floors. Please dress warmly and wear practical shoes. 21 Wapping Lane, E1W 2RH. Tel: 020 7452 3000
Punchdrunk by name, punchdrunk by nature. The latest theatre company to receive Nicholas Hytner's NT patronage, Punchdrunk made their name last year with The Firebird Ball, a merging of Romeo and Juliet and the Russian folk myth, The Firebird, in promenade.
Promenading around derelict buildings has suddenly become big business. Some may remember Deborah Warner's subtly terrifying installation inside Gilbert Scott's wonderful gothic pile, the Midland hotel at St Pancras. Others will cite, more recently, Shunt, who forsook their Hackney arches for ones underneath London Bridge at the NT's instigation, only to find that institutional approval can be a poisoned chalice.
Dreamthinkspeak are another young company keen to break the bonds of passive theatregoing. Their Dostoyevsky-adapted Underground last year, set in an abandoned abbatoir in Smithfields, was as stylish a piece of promenade installation theatre as I can remember. Now we have Punchdrunk hoping to repeat their Firebird Ball success and sorry to say, chaps, it doesn't quite cut the mustard.
Once again, you can roam the corridors of an abandoned building (a factory in Docklands), this time following the adventures of Faust as he tastes the heights and delights of hedonism and comes to his habitually sticky end. Felix Barrett's production – if you can find it, there is absolutely no signage - echoes to the sound of banging doors and trudging feet as audiences stumble across characters in mid-fight, peer into rooms bereft of humans but punctiliously decked out as old style haberdashery and sweetie shopfronts or loom into what looks very like old Faust's scholarly cell complete with cosmological charts, diagrams, tubes and burners.
You can't fault the atmospherics thanks to the talents of Robin Harvey (design), Tina Bicat (costume), Matt Prentice (lighting) and Stephen Dobbie (sound). Installations have come a long way in their sophisticated handling of random and carefully planned elements.
Yet, though Maxine Doyle's set pieces are themselves small gems of choreographic athleticism with Dan Canham's Faust, Vinicius Salles’ Mephistopholes and Sarah Labigne’s Gretchen as resilient as they are brave in the lengths to which they are forced to go, the sum total is less drenching than you might expect. A sense of exploitative sensationalism begins to creep in as once more, spectators are drawn, as if by osmosis, to witness another explosive sexual or physically violent encounter.
An every day morality tale for our times of the wages of excess, my fellow travellers seemed at one and the same time confused, excited and happy to be horrified. Performances run from 7-10pm and last around 90 minutes, on a continuing loop. You can linger or hop in whenever you like. It's entirely up to you. Good luck.
Astonishing, there's simply no other word to describe this production.
I've seen 'Faust' five times already with one final visit to come (and I *never* see things more than once). It still haunts my dreams. - PaulH
13 Mar 07
fantastic! - 134.225.1.162)
01 Feb 07
AMAZING - 205.228.74.13)
29 Dec 06
I would thoroughly recommend this production. Someone bought me tickets and I had seen the reviews, so I had absolutely no idea what to expect. Initially I wandered around fascinated but trying to work out what I was seeing, by the end I was starting to piece it together. Now, the morning after, I am recommending it to everyone I meet and I have bought tickets to go again. I have been captured. - 195.93.21.105)
22 Dec 06
I was taken as a gift and had no idea what to expect. I loved it but you have to work for yuor entertainment. It is disorientating. Spooky. David Lynch meets Pina Bausch. Maddening. Original. Exciting. Well worth the price of a ticket. God knows how many dull plays I've endured in the past 10 years. This isn't one of them. Go. Go. Go. - 81.6.253.15)
27 Nov 06
In the previous review I should have said....more a series of tableaux. Apologies for sloppy typing! - 172.200.28.227)
18 Nov 06
Five stars! come on that's far too generous. I went along expecting a promenade performance instead it was a more a serious of tableau. It definitely needs more work and far better structuring. I think the NT involvement was based upon the success of an earlier production. Mr Hytner certainly should have had a look in ealier. It clearly needs help to turn an interesting idea into a fully realised piece of theatre. I felt I'd drifted through an arty version of a Disneyworld ride - Thunder Mountain perhaps - but with out the exilleration. Sure it has it's moments and donning the mask at the begining helped - not just in identifying the audience from the actors but also giving us, the viewer/voyeur, a sense of detachment from the scenes whilst at the same time being in the thick of it. That aspect I felt was original and could have helped to develope the piece. But even so it's still a shambles. A cast of actors wandering around in search of a play....? And at twenty five quid a pop! - The London Dungeon is only sixteen quid - come off it! - 172.200.28.227)
18 Nov 06
Astonishing and magical. So much detail, an exhilarating, terrifying, essential theatrical experience. - 86.140.165.9)
17 Nov 06
Totally extraordinary show. The most amazing designs and the most commited, brave and energetic cast in London. I found myself in the midst of scenes that will haunt me for a long time to come. Punchdrunk are robbed if they don't win that evening standard best newcomer award. - 82.45.250.31)
16 Nov 06
A memorable experience - and isn't that what theatre is about? - 86.143.155.216)
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