I went to see Tropicana tonight. It's a theatrical experience put on by Shunt, which rather excitingly takes place in a kind of labyrinthine series of rooms which are accessed through a fire door in London Bridge Railway station. I had heard very little about it beforehand and so didn't know what to expect, but it was another fantastically enjoyable excursion into the outskirts of what theatre can do.
First of all you entered a room made up to look like the cubby hole of a London Underground employee, who was going about his daily life, but who then hurried us through his locker which opened up into a big plush bar where we had drinks as (I think) Derek Jacobi did a voice over about "the machine". Then we had to get in a big lift that only took about a quarter of the audience and supposedly descended into the underworld of London, though this was all just theatrical magic.
It was a bit like being in one of those "adventure" tourist attractions - I went to one in Las Vegas based on Star Trek, but it was a whole lot more wierd, dark and sinister. It was what the London Dungeons should really be like, with a real air of threat in the air, whilst still being hugely amusing and enjoyable.
We exited the lift and were taken through a pitch dark passage into a room full of cages where a strange lady talked to us. I was aware that the other audience memebers were being taken elsewhere and talked to by different people. It became apparent that we weren't all getting exactly the same show, especially when one of the characters came into our room with his audience members. There was a great moment where we were left in this room and the woman left a note in an envelope and said "If I'm not back in a couple of minutes, open this."
Everyone then waited and shifted, wondering if someone should open it. One woman went almost immediately, but another told her she had to wait a couple of minutes. After a while she was cajoled into opening the letter. As it happened the letter wasn't important as we were instructed what to do next by the TV. A freakish ventriloquist dummy with the face and voice of a small child told us where to go. It was such a great combination of ideas; it was amazing enough just to have been allowed to come into this vast room hidden away in a train station, but to get this strange and disquieting story as well again showed me the possibilities of theatre.
The next section of the show involved sitting in a bigger room which was in almost total darkness, which would occasionally be illuminated with dim light and show us someone or something going on. Occasionally you could clearly see what this was, other times your eyes could not adjust and you probably imagined something that wasn't there at all. There were arches in the room and some audience members were sitting in separate sections. Again you got the impression that we were all getting slightly different shows. Although it made little sense, it really made me consider my senses and my fears. There was a great bit where a bloke was holding a pineapple, caressing it and looking at it lovingly, before then smashing it into the ground and stamping it into mulch. I liked this particularly because a few seconds later in the darkness you were hit by the pineapple scent and it all just made me think about how amazing our sense of smell is and how it can identify certain odours so easily.
Frightening vaudeville figures were stalking through the darkness - women dressed as showgirls with feathered head-dresses, crouching and strutting like some kind of lizard or dinosaur. A woman hanging upside down flew down the middle of the room as if on an automated meat hook. This was all so great because I am sure other people will literally have seen different stuff, but also interpreted the images in different ways. I'm not sure what it all meant, if it meant anything. But maybe all it wanted to achieve was to make you think about stuff in the way that I just have.
It turned out that somehow the lift operator had died and an ambulance came through the space and then a hearse came back the other way. This was being pulled by women in black bikinis with big chains and I realised that I had now got another additional aspect to my funeral fantasy. Not only should the church be full of weeping women who then lez up, but my hearse must be pulled by wailing women in black bikinis, accompanied by a man slamming chords on his guitar and then (as happened tonight) once the hearse stopped the women must do a kind of sexy trapeze act.... and then they should lez up too. Why not? It's my funeral.
I am going to write this all down properly, so that my final wishes can be adhered to. I know my mum and dad read this, so if I go before you remember this is my last wish. And obviously any girls who want to help out with the weeping, wailing, hearse tugging and lezzing should make themselves known at the proper time.
Anyway, my sick fantasies aside Tropicana is another hearty recommend from me. Go and see it if you can. It's one for London people though as I don't see how they can tour it.
