Mystery Surrounds New Punchdrunk Production

Franco Milazzo
By Franco Milazzo Last edited 132 months ago
Mystery Surrounds New Punchdrunk Production


Immersive theatre specialists Punchdrunk have announced a major new collaboration with the National Theatre to be held at a yet-to-be-revealed location.

The production called "The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable" will be inspired by one of the most performed and influential German plays, Woyzeck. The tale of murder, infidelity and madness induced by a diet of peas should provide rich pickings for the theatre company behind the Poe-based hit The Masque Of The Red Death.

Their biggest show to date, Punchdrunk's take on Georg Büchner's work (who inconveniently died of typhus at 23 before finishing his masterpiece) will be set in a Hollywood studio filled with "dreamers who exist at the fringes of the movie industry".

Those eager to get a sneak peak of the show before its grand opening this June should wander down to deepest darkest Hipsterville where a "teaser" extract is being enacted in a Kingsland Road shop. Those who find the venue are shown down to the basement where they can hear an extract from the play and walk away with a charm which may come in useful during the show proper.

As for the venue? Punchdrunk artistic director Felix Barrett is keeping tight-lipped on the precise location but has said "we're delighted to have found it. We saw it for the first time about three years ago and we failed to land it at the time, but it's come back. It has a melancholy and a mystery to it that sits with Buchner’s visceral atmosphere. It is disused, versatile and currently very, very cold." Could this be an allusion to the recently-shuttered Old Vic Tunnels which is close to the National Theatre or the Dalston-friendly Stoke Newington International Airport which closes on 1 April?

Photo credit: Barney Moss

Last Updated 21 March 2013