Antenna in association with Soho Theatre Company 'Euphor!um' till 20 October
Euphor!um
The Undercroft at the Roundhouse
Chalk Farm Road, London NW1 8EH
From 14 August - 20 October
Wed-Fri 6pm - 10:30 pm
Sat 1pm - 10:30pm
Sun 1pm - 6pm
(show lasts approx 40mins, enter at 3 min intervals)
Tickets: 020 7478 0142
www.shohtheatre.com; www.antenna-theatre.org;
www.roundhouse.org.uk
A hallucinogenic trip not only out of this world but taking you to another world entirely – Euphor!um is a legal high you’ll never forget.We’ve all heard about what it feels like to be on a drug-induced high. Fortunately the vast majority of the population cannot lay claim to ever experiencing that surreal and sometimes frightening sensation themselves. Until now, that is, as Chris Hardman invites us to literally live the opium-infused dream that inspired Samuel Taylor Coleridge to write his nonsensical and fantastical poem Kubla Khan more than two hundred years ago.
After a few stiff drinks in the opium lounge – a room seductively lit and dizzying with the foggy and heady effects of incense – an opium goddess leads you down a dark stone corridor to a room where you begin your tripping. I am not going to ruin the experience for you, however, and tell you in detail the sequence of events you are then compelled to participate in. Just be content in the knowledge that the next thirty minutes of your life will be profoundly enigmatic and disorientating, as the kaleidoscopic mask you wear on your head conjures images and illusions reminiscent of what could only ever be found in cloud cookoo-land.
It comes as no surprise after reading the poem that Coleridge was high as a kite when he wrote it. Hence, having studied the text on countless occasions throughout my life I join the long line of irritated academics challenged by its meaning. But this confusion is what makes Hardman’s illusionary fantasia so brilliant – it doesn’t try and concrete a meaning but allows scope for each individual to make of the poem what they will. A dream is an entirely personal, subjective phenomenon and this is what Euphor!um sets out, and manages quite ingeniously, to achieve.
The Soho Theatre Company works in conjunction with San Francisco’s hugely innovative Antenna Theatre to bring this 3D visionary and interactive dreamscape to life before your very eyes. I don’t really think that the spectacle can be considered theatre, but this is not to its detriment in any way. Indeed, it is a struggle to recollect a dream once you have awoken from its strangeness, and you will certainly find it hard to explain the experience you endure in Euphor!um. But it is well worth a try anyway.
Conceived by: Chris Hardman
Sound Design & Audio Production: David Torgerson
Voices: Erik Bauersfeld, Jodi Burke, Peter Holmes, John Joss, Loise Page, Tanya Napier, Sarah Roberts, Dee Jones
Fabricators & Crew: Christopher Gandolfo, Marie Riccobene, Chris Corbett, Douglas Waters, Miguel Fierro, Jennifer Racioppi, Stacey Shatzel
2002-08-16 12:42:49