commonpeople1 | Night of the Lycanthropes (Reply)

At the end of the DLR line, heading East, is a station called Gallions Reach. It's a desolate business park with a few traveller hotels sitting beside car parks. This is where we went yesterday evening for the English National Opera's collaboration with Punchdrunk on the macabre 17th Century play The Duchess of Malfi.

Ticket holders gathered outside the gates of a disused office building, very reminiscent of a Resident Evil video game setting. There was a sense of apprehension in the crowd as we were led to an outdoor drinking area and handed pharmaceutical cards that allowed us a complimentary drink served in a blue metallic mug. The crowd was divided into three groups, to enter in 15 minute intervals.

Before we explored hallways with empty office rooms, we were given masks to wear - a staple now in Punchdrunk's productions. We examined the office desks abandoned in a hurry - this pharmaceutical company was clearly studying and testing people suffering from lycanthropy.

wink_martindale pointed out how odd it was that their method of investigation was very Victorian (their lists and terms of study) but done through computers. Then we found holes at the bottom of a wall and could see a naked person on the other side, in a harshly lit room. I turned to Wink in horror and said "Oh god, there's someone out there dressed as a werewolf who's going to hunt us down!"

But there was nobody out there. The increasingly trashed office rooms gave way to three empty floors of all types of forests: metallic trees, tombs, hanging music sheets, church benches, mist as thick as the worst Silent Hill scenario. In the darkness we could glimpse tiny rooms to investigate - an empty nursery, a study with walls covered with files and old photographs, a hole in a corner which led into a hovel where some kind of wolf-man lived and made crucifixes - a lush bed chamber not too far away with a bathtub, drawers filled with jewels and a bowl of grapes. And chairs everywhere for musicians to sit down, though the only music we could hear was a threatening noise soundtrack broadcast across all floors.

Then the singers, dancers and musicians arrived. Like previous Punchdrunk productions, the audience's white masks turned them into disembodied spirits that followed the action and stood around as scenes were played out. The higher the drama, the larger the group of spirits (though, to my amusement, some were more interested in fiddling with cupboards then paying attention to a half-naked choir boy self-flaggelation while a Catholic bishop sang.) The masks also unmasked inhibition; an air of lechery from the actors was teased occasionally into the audience by drawing them in for hand kisses, embraces and private performances in locked rooms.

My feeling with promenade performances like this one is that you should always stick to following a character around, and always follow your gut instinct instead of the crowd. One of the main scenes, for example, happened by the elevators on the ground floor. I was right on the top floor, crouched on the carpet and pressed against the glass window. Ghosts around me went into a tizzy that they were missing the action and quickly ran downstairs. I stayed put and had the luck of a private dance by one of the performers. There was a piece of the metallic forest on the carpet which I pocketed as a souvenir.

What is the story of The Duchess of Malfi? It's very hard for me to tell. The idea behind these shows is that you meet afterwards in their bar and piece it all together. I know that Wink saw one of the women inject poison into the grapes, which I later saw another one eat as she secretly tried on the jewels. I know the Duke was attacked by wolves in the forest and hunted by a pair of brothers. I know that a woman went to a doctor, got tied to the bed and then nearly murdered. I know that I nearly had a heart attack when I was following a dark widow by myself and she turned around and stared at me.

And the music? It was a brilliant idea to have musicians move around and play to the opera, sometimes as a full orchestra - in the room with the giant bed or the church - and sometimes with only a violin and a flute in a bedroom. And often the opera was sung without any instruments - just that droning, horror soundtrack in the background as the voice cried about one tragedy or other. I've always thought opera sung in english was a bit rubbish - the equivalent of music composed for musicals - but it really seems to come into its own in that setting. Perhaps this is where english opera is meant to be performed? In a desolate environment where you need to understand the words so you can piece together the story?

Finally, after nearly three hours of exploration, the audience culminated in a large room with the entire orchestra and figures dressed in red KKK-type outfits carrying giant crucifixes. Then the Duchess arrived, carried on a chair and deposited on a centre-piece walkway where she was confronted by men and women, her neck covered with necklaces, a rope tied to her feet and her body lifted... her throat cut. The curtains all around the audience fell and we found ourselves staring at dozens of black bodies hanging upside down. A great, shocking end to a great, mysterious night.