Imagine a goldstone building of Neoclassical Art Deco design - built for the education of girls, later as a bastion...

Imagine a goldstone building of Neoclassical Art Deco design - built for the education of girls, later as a bastion of the Law and left deserted and reimagined as a cinema space, all of this left behind and dropped into a montage of themes and drapery from the Gothic world of Edgar Allen Poe. Night starts to fall.

Hydrate first. Take your reading glasses, if you need them, in a padded pocket, the lights will be dim, and there are messages to be read.

Talking is not permitted. We sink into the suspension of disbelief and it takes quite a bit to be pulled out of it at the end.

Smoke rises from gravestones and figures charge through the twilight - a bell rings. A row of infirmary beds. Deserted prams. A loud, accusatory heartbeat - what's that glow under the floorboards? An untidy nest of clutter behind a stage. A black tunnel of feathers opening out into somewhere unexpected.

Helpful signs - The Pit, The House, The Heights show the way. Tunnels and passages are hidden in plain view. Messages are to be found - voices cry out in fear or supplication or invitation, in the distance or near. It depends where you are in the School.

This is an intense and surprisingly intimate experience. There can be lots of stairs, and crawling through tunnels. It's disorienting and surreal, and very, very dreamlike. Doors seem to open onto new rooms, acts spring up out of nowhere, dark figures move around, ushering. You might be urged to go with some of the main characters, larger than life. The Actress to help her, a Detective might whisk you away for what - a little girl might demand to be read to in a lake of pink bubbles...

It all seems to go on forever.

This is not jump out of the cupboard and scare you boo! horror. It's the slow forbidding horror of unfolding suspense and a fever dream cycling around. The entire setup is ingenious, and huge amount of props and transformation material has been used, and the performers amazing.

I'm still not sure whether I should be pleased or sorry I didn't try to map the place.

There are stairs and tunnels and passages. They can do access friendly tours but they are limited and you need to check with them first. Edit: no longer accessible available.

A big thank you to all the Veiled Ushers who have the most thankless task in this performance.

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

Highly recommended to people after an immersive experience, who like Gothic horror, surrealistic surroundings and the passion of performers so immersed in their roles that it was quite the a relief to see them emerging into reality after the show.

10/10 Enthralling and on the Sid and Nancy scale: a fun night for all the kids at the H P Lovecraft holiday fun camp with a visit from Dark's Carnival.

There's several more performances. We had an 8:30 one, which was pretty good, as it gave us the option of staying longer to see bits we'd seen the the end of, but not the start of, once we heard the cues and understood what they meant.

#fringeworld #fringeworld2019 #perth #westernaustralia



https://fringeworld.com.au/whats_on/a-midnight-visit-fw2019