The Frog Princess

Brief

To find and select a site in which to develop a narrative-led performance using scenography, lighting and figures but without the use of dialogue. The budget was £100.

History & Concept

The Bridewell Theatre were kind enough to allow us to use their theatre bar for the purposes of our performance. Situated off Fleet Street in central London, The Bridewell's main theatre space is built directly over a Victorian swimming pool which remains accessible and intact beneath the many stage trapdoors. A separate laundry sharing the pool's filtration system is located at the basement level where the original towel rails and laundry equipment still reside alongside the modern bar. We were struck by the oddness of these two worlds sitting side by side and the different kinds of people who would be sharing the space if time were no object.

How it Worked

A great deal of thought was given to predicting how audience members would move through the space in order that we might then be able to manipulate those behaviours. We couldn't have them stroll in, cross the area and walk right out of the exit before anything had happened - a real possibility given the size of the space. If we were to tell our story using only sounds and visual elements, we had to ensure that audience members saw what they needed to see at the right times and just as importantly, didn't see the elements we wanted to keep hidden.

In order to control the audience and considering the size of the space we decided to only allow audience members in one at a time. This would ensure that they had the opportunity to see everything they needed to whilst also making them less confident - with any luck they would enter the dark room with a sense of trepidation. All they knew was that they were decending below street level and that they were following signs down to a bar.

Steam filtered through the grills in the walls as floor and white towels lined every available space, a surreal image in the confines of the modern bar. As audience members made their way slowly through the steam, a tableau appeared: three men sitting at a bar. They did not talk, but remained, nursing their glasses of wine, waiting. The audience would stop (x) and stare at them, waiting for something to happen.

After a beat there was the sound of glasses clinking and, turning around, the audience would come face to face with another man, the Barman, previously unseen in the shadow of the main bar. The Barman poured the audience a glass of wine. Sliding it slowly across the bar to them, the noise drew the attention of the three men. Perhaps this newcomer was the person they had been waiting to meet?

Whilst the audience deliberated whether to take the glass of of wine under the stare of the men, the light changed. At the far end of the room, behind an industrial grill, a light had come on and, as they watched, a woman emerged, soaking wet, clad only in a swimsuit and carrying a golden ball. The men, realising the audience was not the one they were here to meet, slowly turned back to the wall. They could not see the woman. She walked past them, apparently oblivious to anyone else in the room. She went to sit on a bench, taking a towel from the pile beside her and went about drying her hair.

One of the men finished his glass of wine and left the room, causing the audience to watch him go. Should they follow him out or should they take the place he had left? They would always look back to see what the woman was doing, but she had silently disappeared whilst they watched the man leave. Often, in their confusion, they would walk around the bar to the corner of the room see if they could find anything behind the grill where the woman had come from but by now the light from there was gone. Instead, the grill beside it, apparently leading to the same place as the first grill, was now lit but the woman was not there either. The room was now filled with mounds of grit right the way up to the ceiling. In the dim light they could see more towels, buried deep within, no longer clean but covered in dust. As they stared, from the corner of the room the golden ball came rolling out, knocking gently at their feet.

After another moment, the exit door opened behind them and they knew the experience was over.

In total the performance lasted three minutes and 40 seconds.

Reception

As it was a completely new kind of performance for us, we were keen to know how people really felt about it, especially as it was so short. After each audience member left the room we asked them if they would fill out a short questionnaire. Twenty-six people responded and we were excited to find that nearly all responded positively to the experience. It also gave us the confidence to go forward with more of these kinds of performances, and gave us clear direction on how we could improve them.