Welcome to Borduria, the country inhabiting all fictional characters. Goldilocks lives in Northern Borduria but the portal in a basement of the brutalist Balfron tower in East London leads straight to the grim South where the unscrupulous and scheming Macbeths reside. Alongside these fictional characters live the Bordurian citizens who show the spatially shifted visitors around and speak in borderline offensive Russian accents.
Director Felix Mortimer said that he never calls his work “immersive” and it crucially isn’t. Ushered around by two chaperons with varying degrees of improvisational ability the audience experiences the story of the murderous couple in short bursts. Several flats on various floors of the building serve as sets for the banquet, murders, fights and plotting. Michael Adams and Sarah Ratheram were the Macbeths on this particular evening and so close up they were particularly captivating. Still, there is something inherently problematic with the way audience and performers interact and how the narrative is driven between the scenes. Clearly separated from the action I was mostly an onlooker but not always, there was a palpable awkwardness about what my role as an audience member was at any given point. Am I supposed to interrupt when someone is being murdered or would that screw up a perfectly planned time table? Gavin Duff’s Banquo and Roseanne Lynch as Lady MacDuff manage to blur the line as their performance aura is more penetrable and their fate so bloody that compassion and shock gets rid of all dramaturgical concern.
Alexander Luttley’s flirtatious Porter gives us a rare interaction with a fictional character and there is an utterly creepy devised scene by Gruff theatre which should not be spoiled but it feels like it’s straight out of a horror film. However, it’s all too brief and doesn’t entirely slot into the rest of the evening. Exploring and roaming is not encouraged and questions to where certain doors lead are blocked rather unceremoniously. I remain contained in the space and controlled in my actions to the point of frustration. After I was placed in front of a telly blaring out lengthy faux news material in a moment of unchaperoned free will I decided on a visit to the loo. It turns out to be bad timing indeed and I missed the tragic Lady Macbeth scene. Tuts and disapproval from the chaperons greet me and I feel guilty for what is essentially a structural weakness of the piece. On every staircase or behind every corner there are Bordurian stage managers and assistants with clipboards not so secretly directing groups of actors from one place to the next. What a logistical effort from cast and crew, sadly not one that convinces entirely. The borscht served at dinner was terrific though, it was blood red and therefore matched the plan of the murderous couple perfectly.
A note on details in world building: the passport necessary to enter Borduria and which is never referred back to throughout the performance strictly states potassium – or Banana – consumption is not advisable when traveling through the rift, yet the trifle served at dinner contains bananas. Little details like that show that this mammoth project is ultimately a fractured project and instead of emanating new insight these fractures unveil the crumbling substance of the piece itself. The Bordurian substance then, a mostly consistent design reminiscent of the socialist GDR in the 70s, falters behind the drab facades and curtains.
It all has to do with expectations, really. Having experienced the meticulous location detail and research that went into other promenade shows (think Punchdrunk or Signa) this one disappoints. However, it has to be acknowledged that with its aim to be more than just a variation on a theme and actually follows the plot of the play the production has set itself a difficult task.
The tagline of the performance is “Does murder sleep?” and the answer to that is “Yes, very well, thank you.” Why I was made to stay overnight remains a mystery as the main action is all wrapped up by 1 am, no murderous shouts or midnight wandering. I suppose, there’s nothing like being woken up after five hours of sleep, made to climb up seven flights of stairs to stand on a wet East London roof top to witness the fizzled out after pains of a promenade performance. Astonishing clear view over London with a cup of coffee and Bordurian ramblings around me – odd, but definitely an experience. Clearer than anything else in this show is the potential of what could have been.