I find they become rarer as you get older. Surreal moments that have a dreamlike quality, a pleasant kind of strangeness and you suddenly behave not as you normally would. When you’re little, a visit from Father Christmas - sledge and all, the piles of presents in stockings and an empty bottle of port on the side (ahem) would bring euphoric joy so heightened that the out-of-body experience was physical as well as emotional.
This performance shared this quality. Firstly – and this is an unusual one – I was the only audience member. Not because it was a beautiful sunny day outside and no one had turned up. No, this is a performance designed for an audience of one. The cast knew my name and referenced it several times – I was the protagonist of a play about – I’m not quite sure what, but I can say how I felt. Invigorated, inspired, challenged, spooked.
The boundaries between theatre and real-life shift constantly, from recreating someone else’s nightmare to musing on your own. The actors also step in and out of character and so do you, moving between yourself to a character in a script, making you wonder about authenticity, its elusive quality, its value and what it actually is.
An adventure into the avant-garde, it really does leave a surreal, indelible mark like a vivid dream. The exploration of the line between self and other, reality and dream, subconscious and conscious is an interesting and playful one, and explored with a cast who feel like safe compass carriers into an unknown world. They embolden and enliven you to be more like yourself and what, after all, could be more dreamlike and powerful than that?
Review: Caiti Grove