Things to write home about: The Mask Of Red Death

'Write Home About" A cliched line, but one that came to me. Perhaps it's just better to write something than nothing at all.
Went to see the Masque of Red Death production by Punchdrunk on Friday last, it was amazing spectacular superb thrilling scary frightening monstrous trippy wierd, and I loved it.
The entirety (or so it felt to me) of Battersea Arts Centre had been transformed into a set. Hosting a number of stories and poems written by Edgar Allen Poe, this experience involved the audience putting masks on and entering the action.

Scene 1, Act 1
Meet outside Battersea Arts Centre. Laugh, cajole, go in, after lengthy queueing.
We were greeted by stage hands, who took tickets and bags, and directed us upstairs. Something similar to the Birds experience (mentioned earlier in another posting) as we were ushered around to the back of the building to see the 'play'.
Once our queue had reached the top of the stairs into the draughty building, we were each given a mask - venetian style, long-beaked, white with circular holes for eyes to peep through. Nico had her glasses on over hers, as was the way for bespectacled audience members.
In, through a red curtain, to a chamber, surrounded by red velvet, gathered in the cieling.

'Ladies and Gentlemen'
Our new hostess/ guide, who had appeared from nowhere, greeted us and told us the rules. You are not to take your mask off, unless you are told to, you are not to talk, it is better if you travel alone rather than as a group.
A great build-up, and finally we were allowed to enter. Before we left her she told us that some of us may be seeking treasure, and that indeed, there was some to be found, should we be fortunate.

Next movement (Act 2)
So, through the curtain I go, my mindset switching from oberver to participant. I try to lose my masqued friends, other audience members, who seem so strange to me, sinister somehow, but who, over time in my new world, become backround figures, ghosts, spectres, as the action comes only from those without masks.
Difficult to lose anyone, and we've only just entered the maze, which is what it turns out to be, so on I go. Push this door, it doesn't work. The hallways smell cold. The air is like snowdrift, we're pushing through it. Ah, a door. Black laquer painted. It resists, then, a guide, (black mask, black cape, they say nothing but they guide you through the experience), motions to say that 'whatever is behind the door is not yet ready'.
I step back. Other beaked friends have moved on, finding other ways through the warren: am I missing something else? Still, I wait. Then, aha. I knock.

The same guide opens the same door and motions in the same way to say the same thing. Hmm.

This must be worth waiting for. Finally, the door breathes open, and I breathe in. In front of me is some movement, and I get the impression I've seen something I shouldn't have seen. It's not ready. I've interrupted. The guide from before speaks: "You can take your mask off." (Can I?) So, I step in from this shady corridor, into a room, full of light, and two women, all dressed in black. One of them (to my left) is on a ladder. The other, (to my right) is sat on a chair, with what looks like a dentist's tooth-scraping instrument, tending to a wound in her hand. There are prosthetics and stage make-up itinerary ordered in the corner of the room behind me. I look at the wall and see gashes of prosthetic, what look like wine stains, giving the effect of blood trickling down the walls.

I don't stay too long.

Got a job and stopped blogging

I haven't been using this account for a while and really have been missing it. Since the last posting, I have joined Locum Consulting as a Research Consultant. None of the content on this blog has anything to do with that, which I hope goes without saying. todayiamawriter can no longer cover 'what I did at college', so I am taking some time out to work out a new angle.
Thoughts so far include listing 'people I saw on the train' and other character sketches, more on Frank and Sandy, and any other quirky design things that might come along.
Fingers crossed.