All language subtitles for Punchdrunk.Behind.The.Mask.2023.2160p.4K.WEB.x265.10bit.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX].mkvPunchdrunk.Behind.The.Mask.2023.2160p.4K.WEB.x265.10bit.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX]_track3_[eng]

(PHONE RINGS)

(SECOND PHONE RINGS)

(THIRD PHONE TRILLS)

(FOURTH PHONE RINGS)

MAN: Listen to me.

I'm going to show you something
you've never seen before.

I'm going to blow the whole thing...

to kingdom come.

(GUNSHOTS)

(UNSETTLING MUSIC)

Punchdrunk isn't really
like any other theatre company.

You find yourself in another world.

It's dark, mysterious, it's sexy.

It's bloody.

It's a beast of a show.The epic
and the intimate work really well.

I came out having had my mind blown.

The detail in the sets...

It's like jumping into the film.

You are your own movie director.

Punchdrunk is about falling
backwards

with your hairs standing up
on the back of your neck.

The sense of when a boxer
is punched in the face,

and is in sort of a different
time and place

before they hit the floor.

The starting point to every
single project

is always the building
as the beginning.

(DOOR CREAKS AND THUDS)

I will literally go in and let

the emotional architectural blueprint
of the building guide me around.

From that comes a framework
that you can sort of play into

if you let the building tell you what
it wants to have performed inside it.

You can never, sort of, explore
a building for a second time.

The response happens once
and once only.

Over the years, we've used
postal sorting offices,

we've used hotels,

we've used many office buildings.

Warehouses are,
sort of, the defining ones.

I would say probably four-fifths
of them...

are all demolished, gone.

There's something kind of beautiful

about that ephemeral nature
to this work.

Oh, this is good.

Yeah. The, sort of, dominance
of Mother Nature.

The natural world has
literally started to invade.

(OMINOUS MUSIC)

(MUSIC BECOMES INTENSE)

(SILENCE)

(DOOR LATCH CLUNKS)

(PEOPLE CHATTING)

It's an absolute pleasure
to be meeting you all here.

I'm Felix.
It's so nice to see you all.

I'm directing the show with Maxine.

Maxine.
I'm directing the show with Felix.

I'll just quickly say that
we did announce the show today.

ALL: Whoo!

'We knew this was the show
we wanted to do in London.

'And, actually, what was
amazing was finding Woolwich

'and not only finding one building,
but two buildings,

'to tell the story
of the fall of Troy.'

This is where your new home
will be.

This is Greece. And that is Troy.

'It was such a unique, sort
of, alignment of the stars

'that it was worth the wait.

'From a first walk-through
of a building,

'it's then a minimum of nine
months to a year,

'of a deep dive into the world
of the show

'until we're anywhere near ready
for opening night.

'Today we've about 100 people on site

'who are transforming these amazing
old military munitions stores

'into a cityscape.

'We are actually building the walls

'of what will become
antiquated streets,

'once the scenography is put on top
in the months to come.'

This will be the main piazza,

uptown Troy, and that will
become a department store.

This is our sake bar. Sorry.

This building here is Greece,
the land of the victors.

This will all be
vast, brutalist columns.

And then if you spin around, the
other end of our abstracted cathedral

is going to be the shower block.

I think what's interesting
is that in doing our first show

in, sort of, eight years
in our hometown,

and actually finally being
able to do a show in London

in a building that is not going
to be demolished imminently,

as all the rest have,

it certainly has gone up in scale.
But it is nerve-wracking.

(LIVELY PERCUSSIVE MUSIC)

Punchdrunk is entirely different

from anything that preceded it
and has followed it.

The depth and the range

and the hugeness of the experience

means that they are, I think,
in a completely different world.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING)

Punchdrunk created their own genre,

and I guess it's been called
immersive theatre.

It's the inclusion of
the audience member,

the participation,
the deconstruction of the play.

They took it to a whole new level,

took theatre experience
to a whole new level.

It is very hard to describe
the show to someone

that has never been
to a Punchdrunk show.

The performance happens
around the building.

There is no stage.
There is no elevation.

We are all in one space.
The space is the stage.

It's an immersive experience,
is not interactive.

So you just come in
and you wear a mask.

The mask came about as a fix
to a show that wasn't working

back when I was doing my finals
at Exeter.

I was trying to figure
out how to solve the problem

of distinguishing between performers
and audience members

in a multi-space environment.

I thing Felix had a brilliant,
brilliant epiphany idea

when he began putting audiences
in a mask,

moving them around spaces freely,

and, most significantly,
I think, giving audiences agency.

In Punchdrunk,
everything's up for grabs, really.

There are a few ground rules.

You know, you're not meant to talk,
you keep the mask on.

You obviously don't interfere
with the actors.

And then beyond that,
you're the star of the show

because you're wandering around
and seeing things

and it's your perspective
that defines what happens.

If you want to follow this person,
follow this person.

If you want to watch the set,
look at the set.

We're in a space like this right now

where there's so much information

that people can see,
that they can touch.

So it's very different
than watching from a chair.

I mean, I think if Punchdrunk
is being true to its name,

it is trying to play around with
disorientating audience

and making people feel slightly
out of their comfort zone,

but it all being done in a way
that actually leads them

to become very engaged
with what's happening.

We're aiming to produce the physical
response from the audience.

That's when we think we're giving
them their money's worth,

to give them a tingle,

a shiver, maybe tears,
maybe laughter.

You might take this as a sort
of test of your personality,

whether you're a follower,
or a seeker,

or somebody who waits.

But you can, by following
a particular character,

trace the path around
the whole of the building

and trace a path through the story.

(SINISTER MUSIC)

The mind is a maze, isn't it?

The mind is a dark,
mysterious maze of winding streets

that are only seldomly lit
by knowledge, experience,

ultimately, memory.

Memory lights our way
through this dark maze.

And every time that I come back,

it's as though...
the power is gone out...

as if I'm drowning in a pool
of darkness, as if...

I'm dead.

With all of the mask shows
that we have created,

there's always been a strong
collection of source text,

so Sleep No More,

perhaps the show that we
have become most known for,

is based on Shakespeare's Macbeth.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

The Masque Of The Red Death, we draw
on Edgar Allan Poe's short stories.

The Firebird Ball was based
on Romeo And Juliet,

a slightly lighter touch
and feeling.

And then The Burnt City is based
on, essentially,

two classic Greek tragedies:

Agamemnon by Aeschylus;

and Hecuba by Euripides.

And those two plays
actually chart the same moment

of collapse of the legendary
metropolis that was Troy.

There's a huge amount of planning

that goes into
the pre-production part

of these large-scale mask works.

Felix and I, for The Burnt City,

we spent a long time in a room
with lots of paper

working out character journeys
through the space.

It starts as a big document
on the wall that's scrawled on.

Down the side, it has each
character, and across the top

it has the scenes 1 to 11.

And if you follow each
character along,

you see each of these headings
and you know in space

which room they are going to be in.

So, this is our master doc,

this is our loop charts.

And over the course
of a three-hour show,

it's actually made up
of a one-hour show

that loops three times.

This is the closest
we get to a script.

Often there'll be gaps.
As we get to the characters

that we know less about,
then it becomes much more creative.

And sometimes,
if I'm honest, it's...

You would just see: "In the bistro
between seven and eight.

"Good luck.
Find something interesting to do."

The point about Punchdrunk
is it's never ceases.

There are stories going
all the time,

but I think the main criticism
is that people

often have a feeling
that they've missed the main point.

And my response to that is there
is no main point to Punchdrunk.

Everything is the point,
so that it's a blizzard of detail

made up as our life is made up
of tiny punches of experience.

(ENIGMATIC PERCUSSIVE MUSIC)

(MUSIC BECOMES UNNERVING)

# TOM HOWE & DAVID JONES: Spy Games

One of the amazing things
about working on a show

is the group of people that make it.
It really takes a village.

There's creativity exploding
out of every scene.

With Punchdrunk shows you're
creating a world that's not static.

And I think having that
level of creativity and passion

means that the world is constantly
alive and evolving.

I want to try.

When we're making a show like this,

just to walk around the building,

you'll overhear snatches
of conversation

between people dissecting
the meaning of a glance,

the minutiae of an interaction.

It's a thrilling thing
to be a part of.

So, Peter Hall, I remember reading
a biography of his many years ago,

and he said that 90% of
good directing is casting.

And I went, "Ting."

That is absolutely where
we come from in Punchdrunk.

Welcome to our collection of sick
buddies; half museum, half maze.

(LAUGHTER)

Its wild in here, it really is.
I'm Lily's mom.

(LAUGHTER)

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

(ENERGETIC DRUM MUSIC)

After the mask,
the second big trademark

of Punchdrunk is the choreography.

Generally, in Punchdrunk shows
the performers are dancers.

They have this incredible
kind of dancers' physicality.

They look like, kind of,
otherworldly figures

because they can do things
with their bodies

that, you know, you and me can't do.

There's always been a beautiful
synergy in dance

and visual art, I think, anyway.

And dance has been
a very progressive art form

in terms of site and building.

You know, it's always been engaging
spaces in a different way.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

Dance operates
on a sometimes more poetic,

dreamlike landscape,

less easily defined and pinned down

than a dramatic text than word.

So I think this offered something

that suited the kind of world
Felix was creating

with light, sound and set.

I love the beginnings
of the process.

When we get the performers
together in the studio,

we start to develop movement,
ideas, actual material

in partnership with other people
or solos.

It starts with improvisations
and they roll and rumble on

until, before you realise it,
you're actually

improvising a scene within the show.

I often start working
more specifically on the finale.

We both like to feel like
we know where we're going.

So I begin to create the steps
and really try

and get a sense of nuance.

Maxine leads
a lot of brilliant exercises

that kind of set up a common
language across the whole company.

So it would be things
like states of tension.

States of tension,
essentially, it's about tempos

and speed and rhythm

and how we can use that
as a performer to tell stories.

It ranges from one to seven,

from very low state of tension to
an incredibly high state of tension.

And Max would offer us
to use it within our work,

within our loop,
and be, like, in this moment,

"What state do you think
your character is?"

So rather than portraying it
emotionally,

how can your physicality
really show

how this person is feeling,
or what the action is?

OK, let's try it
from the same place, please.

I play Polydorus, the son of Hecuba.

And the state of tension
has really been, like the framework

of this character.

It helps to go through the gears.

When I'm being drunk,

I'm in state to when he gets
taken over by Chronos.

The movement quality
is a bit more staccato.

There you go. That's it.

And then it feels like, again, this
can have... Yeah, that's right.

Whereas when Polyduras dies
and comes back as a Fury,

he's a bit more expansive.

The speed has, like,
a cutting quality to it.

It's been nice to identify
those different states

and try to find the root of them.
Yeah.

# THE FIVE SUPERIORS:
There's A Fool Born Every day

(CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK)

As far as our set design
and our world aesthetic goes,

for the major productions,
for the masked shows,

we've always looked back to the past
for our influences.

to sort of create a nostalgic,
dream-world quality.

With Masque Of The Red Death,
it was Edgar Allan Poe

and the turn of the century.

With the Drowned Man,
it was 1960s Hollywood.

With Sleep No More
it was 1930s Scotland.

This is the first time that we've
looked forward to an imagined future.

The starting point is filmic
references as much as anything else.

(ETHEREAL ELECTRONIC MUSIC)

In The Burnt City...

we looked a lot at Blade Runner.

It has that beautiful,
Ridley Scott palette,

that sort of neon-drenched
landscape.

And we looked to Metropolis.

(UNSETTLING ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

They were key filmic sources
for the aesthetic,

but, yeah, again, the atmosphere
and territory we were in.

Metropolis as a source material
also gives us a period of time

and a sort of socio-political
starting point

on which to view the plays through.

It's almost like the key
that unlocks the show.

(MELLOW AMBIENT MUSIC)

I think in the way that
Punchdrunk approaches set design

is, you know, we sort of always
discuss our method

as being part architecture,
part interior design,

part fine-art installation.

It's all these things together
because we're creating this world

that you can explore completely.

I guess with our installations,

a lot of them are sort of leaning
into the abstract world of the show,

which is another really
important element for us.

Felix always comes to us
with the lens

through which he wants
to tell the story.

So we have this sort of parallel
future metropolis there.

In the instance of this show, not
only are we doing Greece and Troy,

but the whole thing
is set in the Underworld.

So, what's that layer, and how can
we have those images or references

in our head as we're creating?

If you want to solve the riddles,
the mystery box of the show,

every single room will have something

that reveals
the fact we're in the Underworld.

If you're in the sake bar,

you might look at one of the bottles
and realise

that it's not a Japanese rice wine.

It's actually water from one of
the five rivers of the Underworld.

The majority of the audience
won't ever look at that,

but the fact that it's there
gives it an authenticity,

and it means
that the one audience member

who does decide to read as much as he
wants of what that bit of copy says

gets the reward of a bit of detail

that Bea's beautiful mind
has solved for us.

(SLOW DRUMMING MUSIC)

One of my favourite spaces
is the tenements.

That's a location that's pulled
directly from the Underworld.

So the tenements represent Tartarus,

and the characters that were sent
to Tartarus as their punishment.

So this is Salmoneus's room.

He was put in Tartarus

for impersonating Zeus.

So he was obsessed with trying
to recreate thunder and lightning.

In our, kind of, interpretation
of that story

he's obsessed
with creating electricity,

but in this, sort of, intense,
crazy way.

So, you can see that all the plug
sockets are sort of fused together.

Shall we go down to the Danaides?

So, the story of the Danaides
was that they were

50 sisters who were
betrothed to 50 brothers.

And on the wedding night, 49 of them
murdered their husbands.

The punishment was
to fill up a bath eternally,

but it had a crack in it.

And this is our nice,
yellowing tape technique,

which we've perfected
over the last decade

to get just the right kind
of yellow on our tape,

so it looks nice and old.

There's something,
I think, interesting

that happens psychologically for
the audience in a Punchdrunk show.

It's almost
like a mindfulness exercise

to be surrounded by a world
that is clearly physically real,

and you can pick up the objects
and they are real objects.

And this is a real smell
and this is a real taste

and this is a real touch.

But, you know, at any moment

that everything around you
is a conscious, artistic decision;

you know it's not real.

And that's essential to produce
this sense of wonder.

(HIP HOP MUSIC)

So, when we enter a building,
it feels like a special day.

We have this thing called
hide and seek.

All the performers are just
let go in the space.

We are, in a way, to kind of have
your own gut response to the space.

And then you can carry that through

to the rest of your creating
of that character.

Felix and I and Cath really become,
kind of, editors, actually.

It's like cooking a really
rich banquet.

You know, you have all of
these pots cooking at the same time,

and some pots needs a bit more love
and attention and care,

and other pots,
you can just leave them.

Gradually, you start to accumulate
the show and the information.

(UNNERVING MUSIC)

As a performance practice
within these works,

we work a lot with touch
and partner work.

We like to try and create in
an atmosphere where there's trust,

and then there's openness,

because ultimately in some scenes

we're seeking quite an intense level
of sensuality.

And then there's all the work that
we sort of did about, actually...

Yes, you're giving a massage,
so you're seducing him,

you're giving him
a sensation of pleasure,

but you're kind of breaking
him down.

You're making him more vulnerable.

There's a materiality
that is really nice.

If you don't have
a real sense of play

and trust with each other
as performers,

it's difficult to generate
that kind of material.

(FOREBODING SOUNDSCAPE)

In Punchdrunk there is a real,
sort of, sensuality

to the shows
and to the interactions,

and I think it's, kind of, quite
an unparalleled experience, really.

There's something quite siren-like

about the way the performers go
about it.

You know, if they were boring,
you'd ignore them.

But, of course, they're incredibly,
sort of, alluring.

So, our massage feels very,
kind of, sensual.

It gets sensual, and at the same
time it can be aggressive.

Agh!

(DREAMY HARP CHORDS)

So, this sense of touch and intimacy
is a feature of all of our work.

In The Drowned Man, the play of
touch communicated stories

of passion and jealousy.

In Foust, we explored the seven
deadly sins, one of which was lust.

It's a work that is driven by
a character's pursuit of pleasure,

and part of this manifests itself
as sexual desire.

I remember saying at the time,

Foust was one of the most important
experiences in the country,

not just theatrically, but in
the country, of all experiences,

which was
as all Punchdrunk shows are,

not an adaptation of a legend,
or a story,

but a response to it.

Foust was the first time
working with the National Theatre,

and that was amazing.

This is fascinating
because this is...

This felt like the moment

that we were starting to be accepted

outside of, like,
the fringes of the fringe.

And it was extraordinary
to be in the National's brochure.

And it shifted us through the gears
of the scale of work we could make.

# BENNY GOODMAN AND HIS ORCHESTRA:
Sing, Sing, Sing

One of the things that I've always
loved about Punchdrunk

is our sense of ambition and drive.

And from pretty early on,
we were really motivated

to create a work
in the heart of New York City.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

The idea of pushing out and trying
to find a new audience

in a new city was hugely exciting.

It was a new crowd to pull the rug
of expectation away from

Sleep No More was due to open
in New York, I think, for six weeks.

And those six weeks turned
to six months,

and now it's 11 years on
and still going strong.

The reason behind the success

is that simply
there's nothing else like it.

And, certainly, when it arrived,
there was nothing like it.

They created a new element
within theatre

and people clearly love it.

It is of no surprise to me
that it runs and runs and runs.

The most recent version of Sleep
No More is playing in Shanghai.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

We had no idea, actually,
whether it would work

in such
a different cultural context...

..but we were really
excited about the challenge,

especially because it was
such a great opportunity

to collaborate
with local Chinese designers

and dancers and producers.

In Shanghai, the audiences
are absolutely extraordinary.

Within the first year, 100 Club
had been organically set up

for people who'd seen the show
100 times.

We put in new characters,
put in a whole new bit of narrative,

a whole new chunk of soundtrack.

We're constantly wanting to improve.

We never once say that it's complete

because there's always a pure...
a depth of emotive power you can hit.

And maybe that's what drives us.

(UNSETTLING MUSIC)

Because our approach is so filmic,
and it's always been the idea

of trying to put an audience
inside a living movie,

we knew we wanted to try working
on screen itself,

and see how you could
break the rules of that form.

So it was incredible
when we finally got there.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

The Third Day was about one man:

Jude law eventually
getting trapped on island.

Felix had an idea
and wanted to discuss it with me,

and said, "Wouldn't it be wonderful
if you could have a television show

that would draw
and lure an audience in

that would then become
an interactive experience,

and somehow you would encourage
your audience to visit...

the place, the town, the village,
the island, whatever it may be,

within the drama.

It was to be a live festival,

a live event in the middle of...

..six episodes of TV.

The audience were welcome
to join the island

and be a part of the festivities.

We then got caught up
in the COVID pandemic.

We had to try and make it work,

and in many ways you could say it
was almost more interesting

and more in keeping, in a way, with
Punchdrunk's first foray into film.

We decided to, rather than have
5,000 audience on the island,

we would have one audience member,
which was a roaming camera.

We would run the whole festival,
as we were planning it,

with Jude performing nonstop.

And a single camera followed us
around live for 12 hours,

so people could tune into the drama
of my character's journey.

Basically,
making a piece of slow cinema

and one continuous tracking shot
that charted

from 9am to 9pm.

We really didn't have a clue as to
what was going to happen on the day

because once we began,

there was no way of stopping it.
It's almost like the train's going

and you just have to keep on
pushing forwards.

It felt live and dangerous in a way

that none of us had anticipated.

I can't think of any experience
I've had like it,

being in that world with them.

It was an interesting crossover
between character and self

because physically there was
such a demand on me,

and I have vivid memories of it.

And you have that from experiences
on stage or being on a film set,

but they're very short.
And there was an unusual,

eerie, sort of, lost quality to it
that for a day I was someone else,

literally, physically experiencing
what this person was experiencing

rather than myself, even though it
was me, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I think those 12 hours
were incredibly compelling.

It was almost a new form of cinema,
I think.

A theatrical form of cinema.

(FIREWORKS WHISTLE)

(JAZZY DOUBLE BASS)

And so as the audience, sort of,
navigate these smaller pathways,

as you get closer to the
instruction of show world,

there's a swell as the
crescendo starts to build,

and then as you step in to Greece,

you're greeted by a wall of sound,

and the show begins.

(FOREBODING MUSIC)

Sound has become quite driving
and leading force

within the palette of mediums
we use in Punchdrunk.

It's very much about
establishing these omnipresent,

tonal, layered, textural atmospheres

that fill every nook and
cranny, every corner of the space.

(ANGELIC, CHORAL MUSIC)

In Punchdrunk
sound is very important.

It's very rarely mechanically
to do with sound effects.

It's do with a soundscape

that you sense
rather than break off to attend to.

The sense of a storm gathering
and then beginning to roar.

It's overwhelming.

So, we're here in Club.
Scattered in this space

there are echoes of previous nights,
previous deejays,

previous music that was played here,

All the while, Polymestor
is keeping an eye on things

from behind a mirror.

And because these spaces
are essentially, sort of, linked,

they do share a similar sound world.

We can carry on this way.

This is one of the corridors
of the Love Hotel.

Again, omnipresent sound,
which is just there

to, kind of,
support and charge the space.

(INDUSTRIAL DRONING)

This is very much a sort
of backstreet off the beaten path.

So, again, the sound is very...
is very...

It's quite gritty, quite grainy,

distorted.

(FOREBODING TONES)

For the town, where we're stood
now, will have much bigger scenes.

The sound blooms
and explodes into the space,

not unlike a, sort of,
big track in a club.

'It's always a treat to see how that
affects an audience experience.'

(TECHNO DANCE MUSIC)

(MAN SHOUTING)

# RAY NOBLE: Close Your Eyes

In this world where everything
is a couple of clicks away,

everything is too accessible.

You can live vicariously
through your friends' Instagram.

So to have a real experience,

the likes of which no-one else
will have had,

lives only in the retelling of it,

that feels like it's become
more and more precious

over the past couple of decades.

What we've always been trying to do
with every single experiment

be it a masked show,
be it, like, an audio experience

is to fully empower the audience.

(SOPRANO SINGS ARIA)

The Borough was the 55-minute audio
piece across the town of Aldeburgh,

and it was for one person at a time.

It was all about,
kind of, theatricalising a town.

And if the work was landing
for an audience member,

it would make them start to question

every single person
they walked past.

Kabeiroi was a six-hour,
living adventure

for two audience
across the streets of London

where the inhabitants
of a city become performers.

That kind of sense of transporting
an audience

is at the heart
of so much of the work.

We ask a lot of them, actually;
we ask the audience to be live

and present in the moment
with performers.

We ask our performers
to be really live

and really present
with the audience,

because often they have to shift
the choreography

or shift the spacing,
or the tempo or the rhythm.

We have some audience who purposely
do things to affect us,

so we have to deal with that
accordingly,

but it is really beautiful
to have them in the space

and to see the story,

and we are affected by them.

The one-on-one element of a
Punchdrunk show

is the most distilled example
of an intimate experience

that an audience can have
within this work.

There are scenes where you learn
something about a performer,

a confession or a secret.

You can experience these,
sort of, one-on-one moments.

Often a performer will
beckon you aside.

What that adds to is the sense
that you're having

a special one-off adventure,

that what you're seeing is not
what everybody else is seeing.

You're just plunged into, like,
that step further.

There's a feeling, while having
watched from behind the mask,

that suddenly, with the mask
taken off, that you're you.

And you're exposed
and the performer can see you

and can see right into your eye.

No, they've never taken me aside.
I don't know what it is.

It's so sad, it's like never being
the person who's stopped at Customs.

In Punchdrunk we've always been
really interested and excited

by the contrast between
the intimate and the epic.

There's this possibility
for an audience

to have a very solo experience.

But then if they want, they can
find themselves

in this shared experience
with many other audience.

So, we create, particularly,
the, sort of, finale scenes,

these moments where
we pull the audience together.

In The Drowned Man
we had a finale scene

which was a line dance
with, I think, 40 of the cast.

And the finale for The Burnt City
was inspired

by a series of paintings actually
called The Fall Of The Damned.

But this was the main inspiration
from a Flemish artist,

and, essentially, the challenge

was to, sort of, create a moving
version of this painting.

(INDUSTRIAL DRONING)

The finale is so crucial

because if you think about
the crescendo of a night out,

of the theatrical experience,

what's that peak?

How does it
both have a visceral impact

and an intellectual impact,

and how does it tie up with the
entirety of what's gone before?

You need a finale point that draws
everything together,

no matter who you've seen,
who you've followed,

if you fail to find any characters,
if you're only going to see this,

how does it feel conclusive
and finite for you?

I think Felix and I actually
from the beginning had thought

about this finale
being as a kind of requiem.

It felt important to have a sort
of point of view about loss

and mourning in this work.

You know, the winner, and the loser,
and the invaders,

there isn't really any victor
because everyone kind of loses.

So, these people that we've
been following round the building

become, you know,
symbols of loss and grief.

(INDUSTRIAL SOUNDSCAPE)

We really wanted this final scene

to have an emotional impact
on the audience.

It was really important to us
that this finale event

stayed with them long after
they'd left the building.

(SIREN BLARES)

Having put on Sleep No More
in other cities around the world,

it was always our intention
to try and find

a future home for The Burnt City.

And we saw the most
incredible space in LA.

It was crying out to have that show.

It's amazing
and quite discombobulating

to be back in LA trying to get a show
on in this most incredible building.

Do you want to go all the way up?

(FUNKY HIP HOP)

It's probably one of the most
extraordinary buildings

that I've ever seen across all
the years of space hunting.

And that's why, seven years on,
we're still trying to land it.

Have all got this infrastructure in?
Yes.

It's pretty much identical
all six floors down.

Really?

Wow, this is crazy.

This is the main...
This is the big ballroom.

This is going to be
Clytemnestra's palace.

Whoa.

I wish Livi and Bea could see this

because this is good to go;
move these out the way.

I just can't get over,
the sort of, thickness of dust.

It's almost like a bad movie,
isn't it?

It's like a straight-to-TV
attic scene.

Ooh.

# DJANGO REINHARDT: Naguine

It's so weird.
I was realising that probably

we're at a sort of turning point
in our practice,

as this building's testament to,
and, actually, the same with London,

how London took six years
to get it on.

It's such a, sort of,
slow form way of making work

that actually it's time for us
to break that mould.

So, if we can finally get
the show on here,

this will probably be the last
full-site piece that we do.

It's amazing now the, sort of,
theatrical vocabulary has shifted

and immersive work is
really very accessible now,

and there's so many different types
out there.

Which means it's going
to have to shift.

My hunch is
it's about incorporating tech

and it's about even more agency
and autonomy for the audience.

If they're used to wandering
round worlds, bearing witness,

which is, kind of,
present-day immersive,

I think the future will be that
there is a new term, a new word

where the audience are the lead
protagonist in their own show.

You are the pivot, and if you don't
move, the show pauses and waits.

And it goes when you go.

That I feel is the actual,
sort of, crux

of the way the future's gonna go.

What excites me is the thought
of making work

that no-one else has done.

I want to be able to plant my flag
on the sand dune in the distance

that no one else can quite reach.

Because that's the thrill.
If we can get out that far,

and we can bring
some audience with us,

then I hope that the stories they'll
have to tell when they get home

will be worth the journey.

# MARLENE DIETRICH:
Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

# Where have all the flowers gone?

# Long time passing

# Where have all the flowers gone?

# Long time ago

# Where have all the flowers gone?

# Young girls pick them,
every one... #

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