The Burnt City ★★★★

By The Recs SCD 2 years ago

The Burnt City is Punchdrunk’s labyrinthine journey into the stories of the Trojan War.

In the eight years since Punchdrunk’s last production (The Drowned Man), the world of immersive theatre has changed considerably. With the omnipresence of Secret Cinema, with their immersive events based around films such as Casino Royale, Stranger Things and the massive The Empire Strikes Back, and the endless immersive dining experiences such as the Christie-styled The Murder Express, The Witches of Oz and Titanic The Queen of the Ocean, there has developed an expectation that ‘immersive’ equals a reframing of a very familiar, popular entertainment. These events very successfully put their audiences in the heart of the action of films or stories that are already well known to them and allow them to interact with the characters. A fun, sociable night out. 

With no criticism implied, The Burnt City is not a fun night out. Just as you wouldn’t go to The Crucible at The National Theatre expecting an evening of laughter, Punchdrunk’s latest work is not intended to offer the high-jinx of the prevailing populist immersive experiences. No spoon-feeding here. 

All images by Julian Abrams

As you begin your journey, you are told in no uncertain terms not to seek a story but to wander as if you are in a dream. Passing through a “museum” that gives you a bit of an historical steer on the aspects of the Trojan war which you may experience, you prepare to move between the known world and into the unnerving, dreamlike immersion. 

Purporting to riff on episodes detailed in the plays Agamemnon by Aeschylus and Hecuba by Euripides, you are invited to roam through the hypnagogic realms of Troy, all neons and vitality, and Mycenae, an oppressive military state. What strikes you immediately is the sheer scale of the endeavour. While both domains are dark and swathed in a dreamlike haze, the Greek Mycenae is constructed on a grand scale: a huge hall with massive tank-trap structures matches the largest dining table imaginable, but it is riven with discontent, machination and mostly gloom. 

By contrast, the city of Troy is a comparatively effulgent warren of shops, cafes and eateries, hotels. Life thrives there in its own idiosyncratic way. Well, for now…

Wearing a regulation white face mask – pitched somewhere between a Greek Chorus and a Venetian plague mask – you become anonymous, floating through these worlds, sometimes gathering around an event, other times exploring the minute details (and the extraordinary details across the site are minute) of these worlds. The future-noir reinterpretation of these legendary environments lends The Burnt City an elusive, disorienting feel. Creative teams Felix Barrett, Livi Vaughan and Beatrice Minns (Design), F9, Ben Donoghue and Felix Barrett (Lighting) and Stephen Dobbie (Sound Design) have assembled a world-class, dark, hypnotic immersive environment where the outside is immediately forgotten.

Within the world of The Burnt City, there are some narratives but Punchdrunk’s approach is highly impressionistic. The performers convey their characters and stories via the media of movement, contemporary dance and on occasion, parkour. There are no words (with the curious exception we stumbled upon of the character of Hades reciting William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence in The White Cypress sake bar). Without knowing the key moments, you could easily find yourself baffled by the proceedings. If this is the case, never mind the story – just enjoy the mise-en-scène and the frankly breathtaking dance performances. Particular praise for exceptional movement moments must be given to Ferghas Clavey as the endearing-but-doomed Polydorus, Omagbitse Omagbemi and Andrea Carrucciu as the plotting Greeks Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. 

The very nature of exploring this Mycenaean-Trojan universe will mean any storyline is told in fragments. You could easily happen upon the beginning (if you are lucky), middle or end of a narrative thread with no context. Unless you have strong knowledge of Aeschylus or Euripides (looks around, what no-one?) you may find it hard to get a hold on what’s happening. If all else fails, Punchdrunk delivers some extraordinary visual tableaux which will linger in the mind. 

King Agamemnon returning to Mycenae, his enormous, seemingly-endless cloak draping over the massive staircase that leads to the Palace, captures the grandeur of power on a huge scale. The horrific last-moment where Iphigenia, dressed in her white wedding outfit, realises that her father intends to make a human sacrifice of her to get favourably sailing winds from the gods is both brutal and poignant. 

The point where the Greek soldiers burst into the Trojan town square – all threatening, backlit silhouettes – conveys the terrifying sense of impending menace. Queen Hecuba’s youngest daughter Polyxena defiance of the invading army ratchets up the tension. Her inevitable murder – she has her throat slit by Neoptolemus and is strung up in the town square as a warning against resistance – is dark and deeply disturbing. 

Given the Russian invasion of Ukraine is ever present in news coverage, the images of war and its harrowing effects contained within The Burnt City are either incredibly timely or badly ill-timed depending on your point of view.

There are suggestions throughout the experience that we are in neither Greece or Troy but rather all of this immersive world is in fact Hell or the Underworld. As the characters walk past you, locked in their story cycle, there is something spectral about their lack of awareness of you. Each narrative thread is repeated three times within each three-hour performance so there is something Sisyphean to watch characters to meet their fate over and over again. In Troy’s Town Square, the Italian café is called  Alighieri’s – referencing perhaps Dante Alighieri whose most famous work is The Divine Comedy which follows a man’s journey through Hell. In Hades’ office, there is a painting by Dirk Bouts 1470 painting The Fall of the Damned which depicts, you guessed it, a trip into Purgatory. 

The Burnt City offers a unique experience – or uniquely Punchdrunk at any rate.

If you are looking for immersive theatre that spoon-feeds you something that you are already familiar with, this is not for you. 

If you enjoy, for example, David Lynch films where you don’t really know what going on, but can appreciate the incredibly crafted vision and sounds and mood, then this will be right up your haze-filled atmospheric street. The Burnt City is immersive without being conventionally interactive. Silently observing events over the evening’s duration can lead to a certain detachment. However, the more you explore and dig into the minutiae of rooms, the more this Stygian playground comes to life. Small narrative branches away from the main story events uncover an underpinning humanity. We followed Greek soldiers Neoptolemus and Patroclus (the ridiculously handsome Will David Thompson and and Folu Odimayo) into a side room filled with wooden crates. On the eve of sailing from Mycenae, the ritual of washing and putting on a new shirt became unexpected homoerotic and tender. 

Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City is a singular, uncompromising vision that returns depth to the medium of immersive theatre. While not for everyone, there is a sepulchral beauty and a lingering experience to be had. The vast army of talented creatives behind The Burnt City have crafted a dark feast for the imagination. 

Breathtaking immersive theatre like no other – but do your research first – ★★★★ (4 stars)

The Burnt City Tickets

The Burnt City runs at One Cartridge Place until 16 April 2023

Buy TicketsThe Punchdrunk x Porsche Experience

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The Recs SCD