“Perhaps war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography”, quips someone in London’s latest documentary play Fallujah, and although this is a serious and dignified (if flawed) presentation, it challengingly pushes you right into the cut and thrust of the argument by being staged as a promenade piece in a great industrial warehouse off Brick Lane. Thus two of the big trends in theatre combine: the current passion for verbatim theatre, and that for theatre in “found” spaces. Except that they’re difficult to find! Perhaps fringe theatre is God’s way of teaching me London’s more intimate topography.
The posters and listings for Fallujah merely say its on at the Old Truman Brewery, and I remember a previous theatrical excursion there last Christmas, when a bit of it was converted into the “Reindeer Theatre”, that was also impossible to find – on both occasions that I went! The first time there was literally no signposting at all, and eventually one gathered in the empty car park/covered market area and was then ushered upstairs to what turned out to be an elegant temporary installation of a theatre next to a winter wonderland of trees that had also been built. When I went back a couple of days later, during the afternoon, the market was in full swing – so the entrance system of two days earlier didn’t apply. Suddenly there was a new entrance, again not signposted.
When I returned last night to the Old Truman Brewery for Fallujah, I suppose I half expected it to be in the same area as the Reindeer was, but there were no signs of life there. My companion and I wandered all the way around the Old Truman Brewery, stopping in various shops and even an upstairs gallery (because the door from the street had the word ‘theatre’ graffiti’ed on it) to ask them if they knew where this event was taking place and none did. There was a huge banner above the street advertising the show, but no sign of where, in fact, it was on. I rang the ICA from my mobile, whose production it is and who are listed on the poster for the box office. They told me it was in the Atlantis Building…. But still not where the Atlantis building was. It eventually took a security guard to point us in the right direction.
Meanwhile, we’d picked up another couple of lost souls on the way. And when we finally arrived at the venue’s entrance – which, for the record, is in the Truman Brewery but on the right hand side of Brick Lane as you head north, not the left where the bulk of the Brewery seems to be – I was fairly fuming, and expressing my frustration, discovered that lots of other people had the same problem.
Perhaps it’s a test of disorientation; to fling us outside of our comfort zone before the show even starts. But for me, with the temptation of so much curry on Brick Lane, I was frankly seriously considering walking out before I’d even walked in.
A similar thing happened the time I went to see Punchdrunk’s Faust at a warehouse on Wapping Lane. I’d been told there would be parking at the venue, but drove the length of Wapping Lane without finding an open gate that would allow this to happen. I parked on the street; and when I came to the venue itself, marked by a couple of posters, the gates were indeed fully closed.
Though Punchdrunk and Fallujah at least offered professional box office services via the National Theatre and ICA respectively, its all very well selling tickets to your show but its an important part of the process to at least enable your punters to then find you easily. No wonder it’s easier to stick to conventional venues: at least I know where Shaftesbury Avenue is. And sometimes conventional venues can be used to spring their own surprises: going to see My Child at the Royal Court last week, there was an amazing dislocation (that I won’t spoil for you if you’ve not seen it yet, and you must!) when you enter via the usual theatre doors, but are ushered into a totally unrecognisable space.
