My Time at Temple Studios, Part 22

Show #22

Friday, May 16: 9 pm

After a brief queue interlude, I was right back inside. A quick cast board perusal made my path clear – I was going to go check out Greig Cooke's Fool. I had been very impressed by what I had seen of Greig thus far, but William is not one of my favorite characters – really, I tend to shy away from all of the leads at Punchdrunk shows. I just find side characters so much more compelling most of the time. So when I saw that I had the opportunity to watch Greig do something other than William, I knew I had to take it.

Once we were through the dark maze, I got my first look at the new male exec, Stevie Fortune (Alex Mugnaioni). He's definitely got a lot more Ace than Larry in him – a little more taunting, a little more teasing – and of course, he's wearing Ace's jacket. He also clearly recognized me from the loop I did with him as Conrad just an hour earlier, giving me a couple of knowing looks and punching me in the chest (stopping just short) as he told us to “be bold.”

On exiting the lift, I hotfooted it back up to the main floor, knowing that the Fool would be – well, somewhere around there. In my experience, Fools are a bit wily, and you won't always catch them in the same spot. I passed through Studio 4, then into the dressing room, but saw no sign of him. Out into the hallway and into Studio 2, still no sign of him. As I left Studio 2, however, I saw him coming out of the far stairway, with another white mask already in tow. How did that happen?

The two of us followed him back into Studio 2, where Wendy (Katherine Cowie) was already in the midst of her tree dance. The Fool climbed atop the table next to the pool and began to direct her, by turns looking like an orchestra conductor and a puppeteer. It was much more showy than I remember this portion of the loop being – in fact, I'm not sure I'd seen this sequence at all before. My fading recollection of the two Fool loops I'd done previously is that we didn't come to Studio 2 until toward the end of the tree dance, and just watched the retrieval of the scissors in the pool. But maybe I'm misremembering. Either way – new scene or enhanced scene, it was a very cool way to start off the night.

Once Wendy departed, we moved down to the birthday tent, where the Fool puttered around for a bit until Lila (Kath Duggan) arrived. I wound up feeling kind of lukewarm about the loop I did with her way back when (it was interesting but not emotionally involving for me), but ever since then, I've found myself more and more pleased to see her whenever our paths cross. Kath's Lila has become comforting to me. And her smile is certainly a treasure – so it was great to see the Fool deliberately working to cheer her up. All in all, the whole scene felt reminiscent of Paul Zivkovich's Fool – the kinder, more caring Fool. He also looked very troubled after reciting “We live inside a dream,” further aligning himself with Paul's side of the scale.

After taping up his script/map, the Fool led our pleasantly small crowd down to the basement, where we were reunited with Lila in the Foley room. The drowning scene in there is one of the most disturbing in the show – both Lila and the Fool start out completely on board with their task, and even seem to perform it with a bit of gusto and enthusiasm. But by the end, it's clear that neither one of them is at all okay with what's going on, despite the fact that they just keep going with it. They can't stop. It would be different if one was really the aggressor, but they're both victims. Highly unsettling.

Next up was the oddly lengthy journey down a short hallway, which was drawn out by the parade of women that passed by (well, okay, two women), each stopping to kiss him in a spotlight. Eventually we looped around through Stanford's dressing room and up to the curtained stage, where the Fool peered through the curtains at the orgy. Surprisingly, he did this alone, and did not bring a white mask up to watch, as I've seen other Fools do in the past. This is consistent with Greig's Fool as a whole – he doesn't seem all that aware of or interested in the white masks. Other than the eventual 1:1 selection, I'm struggling to recall any instance when he noticed the audience around him. Very unusual for a Fool in my experience.

Back upstairs, we stopped off in the dressing room, and suddenly the Fool took off at a run into Studio 4. I followed after, and between us was that other white mask who had somehow found him before me. This is how much of the loop had worked out – she was small, fast, and liked to follow closely, with short little steps that almost looked like she was hopping. When we reached Studio 4, the Fool began his usual running in circles routine, and the other mask was so wrapped up in following him that she just kept run/hopping after him in a complete circle around the room! After that initial circuit, she seemed to realize what was going on and pulled off to the side, but for some reason, she continued hopping. Yes, she hopped up and down in place until the Fool stopped running. Explain that one.

When he finally did stop, the Fool launched into what is probably the most bombastic display I've ever seen in that room. Hearts were exploding and launching from his chest repeatedly and at length. Eventually he calmed down, clapped the clapboard, and then things got a little sinister. I had gotten used to this Fool feeling “kind of like Paul,” but when the time came for him to get scary (and the time had most certainly come), he got a lot darker. A lot. Downright sinister, you might say. I think he may have actually enjoyed tormenting Marshall (Jesse Kovarsky), relishing each hop of the pawn – and then, rather than drop it, he flung it hard against the clapboard, sending it flying off to some unknown corner of the room.

He remained in creepy mode even after Marshall was gone, heading into the kitchen area and. . . .huh.  Hiding behind the door. When Andrea (Fania Grigoriou) came in to get some water from the cupboard , he stepped out from behind the door, now concealed behind the open door of the cupboard. After an agonizingly long pause, she closed the cupboard and revealed him, at which point he grabbed her throat and slowly pushed her over the counter. None of this was in any way familiar to me, which was pretty damn exciting. Once she was back in the dressing room, though, things returned to their normal course, and after a quick chase over to the snow room, the Fool returned to the dressing room to fix his makeup. At this point, I believe we were back down to only two of us watching him – just me and the girl who'd been with us from the beginning. The makeup application stretched on (and again, he did it all himself). . . and then, finally, he looked up and locked eyes with me – the very first time I saw him even acknowledge the existence of a white mask. He grabbed my hand and rushed me over to Studio 2, and then to Studio 8.

As usual, I will not describe the 1:1. But I'm tempted to, because it was not at all what I was expecting. It started off in the usual way, then eventually veered off in a new direction. I never even saw the [SPOILER] that you normally encounter at the climax of it. Honestly, I'm not sure if the whole experience was the result of a string of technical failures or if he was trying out something different. But either way. . . .

It was great. And terrifying.

I've never been that unsettled in the show before. I'd done the usual Studio 8 1:1 twice before (once with the Fool, once with Conrad), and neither of those got to me the way this one did. So when he sent me back out into Studio 2, I found myself in an unusual state – I needed to go sit down somewhere and get my head back on straight. I needed some recovery time.

I headed up to the town, and more specifically, the drugstore, a place that typically makes me happy. But no sooner had I taken a seat than Andy (Rob McNeill) and Miguel (Ed Warner) came in to do their routine with the gris-gris. Suddenly I was surrounded by a horde of white masks. Not to mention the fact that the room was steaming hot. This was clearly not what I needed. So I did what any rational person would do when looking for someplace a little cooler – I went to the desert.

The desert was very nearly deserted, which was exactly what I wanted. I took a seat in the Dust Witch's chapel and just enjoyed the quiet for a bit. By this time I was starting to formulate my next plan – follow the Dust Witch. The cast board said that Leslie Ann Kraus was playing her, and I'd heard some impressive raves about her Dust Witch. I figured she'd probably show up in around 5-10 minutes, by which time I should be fully ready to move on.

Turns out I was ready to go in five. I left the chapel and wandered in the dark a bit, straining to see any sign of her in the dark. Five minutes turned into ten. Still nothing. I checked out some of the side rooms, including the one with the Scarecrow sitting at the desk, which I had never been inside before. Eventually I noticed that “Old Friends” from Sunset Blvd. was playing. Which meant Miguel should have been having his breakdown in front of the Dust Witch. Which meant she should not only be out there watching that, but should already have been moving about, preparing for it. Which meant what the hell's going on?

Nothing was going on. Nothing at all. Other than the music and my own footsteps, there was no sign of life. No Miguel. No Dust Witch. Before long, no “Old Friends.” Nothing but me. Another minute later, even I was gone.

My plan in shambles, I stopped off at the Horse and Stars to visit the Barman (Daniel Whiley). There were already a couple of white masks propping up the bar – I'm not sure how long they'd been there, but hopefully not too long. He's a quiet one, and there wasn't a lot happening. Eventually he wandered over to the far side of the bar and gave the woman there a shot. Then he came back over and asked (using gestures alone) if I wanted one, and repeated the question to the other woman at my end of the bar. We both answered in the affirmative, raised our shot glasses to one another, and downed them. About that time I decided I needed to go find something more interesting to watch.

And hey, what could possibly be more interesting than Faye Greener (Lily Ockwell)? It was, coincidentally, just about time for her dance at Dwayne's trailer, which I had only recently decided was one of my favorite dances in the show. Having seen it twice already in the previous two shows, performed by two different people, I figured I may as well go for the hat trick. I certainly didn't wind up regretting the choice. Lily's version of the dance falls somewhere between Sonya and Katie's, not as smooth as the former and not as edgy as the latter, although it leans more toward Katie's version. It doesn't really feel like just the middle ground, though – there's an attitude there that's unique to Lily. Hard to describe – I almost want to say there's a smugness to it, but that sounds pejorative and I absolutely don't mean it to be. Long story short – when I saw bits and pieces of Lily's Faye in March, I wasn't thrilled with it. I figured she was miscast in the role. The trailer dance went a long way toward reversing my opinion, and convinced me that I needed to take a longer look.

This was not the time for that, though, as I had a third-loop plan in mind already, and time was getting short. I considered switching over to Andy for a scene or two, but as soon as Faye took off, he disappeared into a 1:1. This left me without anyone to follow, but I knew I wanted to be back inside the studio (specifically, in the basement) by orgy-time – so I headed back inside, via the clothing maze.

Once I got into the Seamstress's workroom, I heard some unfamiliar sounds coming from the Doctor's office and followed them in to find William (Ygal Jerome Tsur) just finishing up his examination. Time was getting quite short, so I decided to just hang around with the Doctor (Oliver Hornsby-Sayer) for a bit. That meant leaving the office almost immediately, as he took off to creep down the hallway in that creepy way that the Doctor creeps.

At the far end he took up a position in front of the doors and waited, his pen light at the ready. Ah-ha. Dolores is on her way. This threw me for a moment, as somehow I got it in my head that this scene happens much earlier in the loop. But here it was: Dolores (Sarah Dowling) did indeed come barging through the doors, and the Doctor did indeed chase her aggressively back to the office, mercilessly spotlighting her the whole way. It was definitely intense and effective (particularly the moment where I found myself behind her, so that she was silhouetted against the light), but I have to admit, I kind of missed Rob McNeill's double-fisted police searchlight technique.

I stuck around to watch him give her the injection she needed, and then it was time to get down to the orgy to pick up my third loop character: Stephanie Nightingale's PA. I found her, as expected, right in the thick of things, doing all the usual PA stuff at the orgy. On the way out, she passed right by me, giving me a look that said “You are going to start following me. Right. Now.” However did she know?   I followed her out to the frisky corridor, where she stopped just short of the far door. She examined her reflection in the glass, preened a bit, then slowly bent over, thrusting her butt back at the crowd in a manner that could best be described as unsubtle.

“Ooooooooeeeeeeee.”

There it was. Some asshole white mask was apparently so taken by this that he felt the need to comment out loud. I sighed to myself and tried to focus on – er, the scene. But then it continued. “Wow. Wowwwwweeeeeeeee.”

Come on, man! I turned around to give this guy a glare, and that's when I discovered that the asshole had a name, and that name is Leland Madison Stanford (Sam Booth). Ah. . . . sorry, sir.

Stanford approached the PA, two white masks in tow, asking everyone if they had seen the orgy. Then he and the PA began demonstrating why some call it the frisky corridor. Their interactions weren't quite as extreme or bizarre as when Fania Grigoriou was the PA (there was no eyeball licking), but they did retire to the corner to be by themselves for a bit. Then he told her to do it all one more time, and the mood immediately changed course. She slapped him and stormed off. I took off after her, just as Stanford shoved one of his white masks in the same direction, instructing him to “help her out.”

Things went the way they usually go after that – a walk down the white corridor, a brief explosion of rage, and then a little twist – in her office, the PA gave a white mask (the one Stanford sent after her) a soul-sucking kiss on the wrist. I haven't seen that before; it's always been on the neck. Then she climbed out the window (!) where she found Dolores in full Grandmother mode, stumbling down the corridor. She stopped long enough to taunt and laugh horribly, than ran upstairs. Another bit that I'd never seen before.

We made it to Dolores's bedroom well before she did, so the PA passed the time by playing with a handheld mirror, particularly shining it in the face of that same white mask from before. Then Dolores arrived and she shined the light on her instead, chasing her over to the snow pile. As the PA climbed up with her, preparing to take the grandmother mask off, things took yet another new turn. Instead of helping to free Dolores, she wrapped her arm around her neck, in a mirror of William's murder of Mary, and strangled her to death. The mask came off when Dolores's lifeless body slipped out of it. Now I'm positive I hadn't seen that before – but it made so much sense it was kind of hard to believe that was the case. Suddenly every version of the scene that didn't feature the strangulation felt incomplete.

After getting Dolores ready for her day, the PA gathered up the Grandmother costume and headed downstairs, followed by a massive pack of white masks, myself included. I wound up right behind her going down the stairs, but had to spend the whole time staring at my feet, trying to hold back the surging tide behind me and keep from stepping on the cloak, which trailed dangerously far behind her. When we reached the moon room, she grabbed the same white mask from earlier and took him inside.

This presented me with a dilemma, or perhaps an opportunity. This loop was completely rammed. So many people it was ridiculous. And the PA had clearly picked this guy for the long term, which meant that following her would require waiting through not one, but two 1:1s. Perhaps. . . it was time to go? Stephanie plays the PA a lot, surely I would have the opportunity to try again, maybe on a loop 1.

Ugh. I hate aborting a loop mid-stride – but it was clearly the logical choice. I headed upstairs, uncertain about exactly what to do. I had to find someone to follow, but it had to be someone I didn't mind missing the first couple of scenes for – which ruled out my first idea, Ira Siobhan's Claude. I didn't want to do his loop unless the casting desk dance with Alice was included. Then it hit me: the Gatekeeper. Time to finally see what he's all about.

. . . or maybe not. On the way to his office, I passed through the hallway alongside Studio 5, and I was suddenly reminded of something else I wanted to see. Change of plans – time to check out Annabeth Berkeley's Seamstress instead. One of these days, Gatekeeper.

I heard a woman's voice coming from her workroom and figured she must be mid-scene with someone. I rushed in, excitedly, only to find a white mask chatting with her friend. Damn it. A quick mental calculation sent me off in the direction of Studio 4, where she was most likely watching Wendy and Andrea film their scene – and sure enough, as I arrived she was just walking out. I quickly fell in line behind her, leaping a small pile of set decoration, half-tripping on another, and generally making an ass of myself. Let's not do that again.

The Seamstress's next stop was the dressing room,where she stopped to collect costumes and write “They are everywhere” on the mirror. The creepy glee she seemed to take in this was awfully unsettling. I've heard this scene spoken of by others many times, but I think it's the first time I've ever seen it happen. And come to think of it, I've hardly ever seen anything written on the mirror at all. How do I keep missing it?

Following a quick jaunt upstairs, the Seamstress disappeared with another white mask into a 1:1, so I had a bit of downtime and went to explore the wig room for a bit. When she emerged (unlike several other Seamstresses, she exited the room with her white mask, not afterward), we headed into town for her illicit exchange with Tuttle (Matthew Blake). I really love the way it played out – like a schoolyard drug deal. Tuttle was already seated on the bench when we got there, and the Seamstress sat at the other end. She slid her little bottle over to him, he slid a small packet over to her. Not a word passed between them until she opened up her package, which turned out to be a few red jellybeans wrapped up in a piece of paper with a crescent moon on it. She had to express her excitement at that point. I found it curious that he paid her in red jellybeans – last time, he explicitly refused to let her have the red ones.

Back inside through the clothing maze, the Seamstress sat down at one of her sewing machines – and I though I was about to be treated to yet another new scene. I'd never actually seen her use one of them – but it turned out she was just killing a few seconds before Stanford arrived. They had their talk about Romola, he departed, and then the Seamstress grabbed another white mask for a 1:1. So yes, I bailed on the PA's loop so that I wouldn't have to wait through two 1:1's and wound up waiting through two 1:1's. There's probably a lesson in that somewhere. At any rate, I took the opportunity for a bit of a quiet walk around Studio 5, during which Psychotic Reaction by The Count Five played. After seeing it all over the playlists, it was nice to actually hear the song within the show itself.

By the time she emerged from the 1:1, Faye had already come by, changed into her new dress, and left – the Seamstress just had time to say “there she is. . . “ before she wasn't anymore. She headed back through the clothing maze into her shop, and for some reason, I was the only one that followed her. There, she prepared some sort of medallion – not one that I recognized – by dipping it in a tiny jar of some sort of liquid. Satisfied with that, she looked up at me, then started stringing a different charm on to a ribbon. The whole time, she kept looking up at me with a sly smile. After doing it twice, I find this scene to be really awkward to deal with. She keeps looking at me, and I keep standing there, doing nothing. Plus, as much as I want to maintain eye contact, all the action is down at her hands, and I keep looking there – only to feel really sheepish when I realize that she's been watching me the whole time. It's really hard. Harder than the talky 1:1's that everyone agonizes over.

Eventually she finished and headed back into the maze, indicating that I should follow her. I did so, bracing myself for an assault – but it never came. Instead, she put her hand on my shoulder and slowly, gently guided me to the back wall. She told me that I was in a dangerous place, that I needed to be very careful and that I couldn't trust anyone. Then she put the charm around my neck and told me it might help.

Then she giggled.

Yes, giggled. Like a little girl. Was she amused by the idea that the charm might help me? Was it funny that I was in danger? I'll never know for sure, because she took off at speed, still giggling. I swear, she's like an evil pixie.

I suppose another way to look at it is that Annabeth's Seamstress is kind of what you would get if you were to take the skin of Sonya Cullingford's Seamstress, wrap it around the heart of Kathryn McGarr's Seamstress, and then force-feed a mountain of sugar to whatever you wound up with. She's got the kind, sweet demeanor, but it's amped up to such a degree that it easily betrays its own artificiality, revealing (in a more subtle way) that sort of gleeful nastiness that typifies Kathryn's version. It's tremendously entertaining to watch – I think she just might be my new favorite Seamstress.

Back in the workroom, she grabbed her clipboard and took a trip over to the Doctor's office, where he gave her the instructions for Romola's makeup. She returned to the workroom, noted the instructions on the page, then set the medallion from earlier on the paper and dribbled blood from a jar all over it! Then, just to make matters worse, she took the bloody medallion, along with the dress that Romola would eventually wear, and stood in the doorway with them, presenting them just as Romola herself (Sarah Sweeney) passed by on her way into the bowels of the studio. That's. . . just sadistic.

Once Romola was gone, she took the items over to her work space in Studio 5 and set about preparing things for the Infidelity Ballet. Unlike my last Seamstress, she didn't do any creepy whispering to any of the white masks – but she also seemed to be a little more central to the action, positioned more onstage, so it was clearly related to a broader shift in focus. She did, however, engage in the usual creepy whispering with Andrea (Fania Grigoriou), and she attacked that moment with gusto. Whatever that horrible, secret thing she said that upset Andrea so much was, she clearly enjoyed saying it.

Then it was time for Romola's scene. After helping her dress and turning her loose on the set, the Seamstress returned to her backstage work area to spend some quality time with the medallion – namely, holding it up to the light and running her fingers through the blood that still coated it. Then she went back to the workroom to get ready to do Romola's makeup.

I wound up holding the clipboard for her while she transformed Romola into a car wreck victim, after which she took it back with a chipper “doesn't she just look perfect?”  Somewhere around this point I realized I had completely lost track of the medallion.  Did she slip it into Romola's purse?  Or was there a pocket in the dress?  Did she put it around her neck and I just somehow spaced that moment out?  Or did the Seamstress still have it?  Very frustrating.  But there was no time to investigate - It was already time for a quick jaunt down the hall to help the Doctor give Romola her pill, after which everyone went with either Romola or the Doctor, leaving me alone with the Seamstress. I followed her to the 1:1 room, which was occupied by a lone white mask. The Seamstress chased her off and took me inside, locking the door. There we had. . . well, I guess it was a 1:1? She never took my mask off, but we were behind a locked door. Anyway, it was basically the same scene from the end of my last Seamstress loop (Show 19), except done in private. And yes, I said “no apron” again.

As we left the room, she warned me that we were going to have to run. I took her hand and we ran, passing another white mask on the way. The Seamstress shouted back “You're going to miss it!” but that didn't seem to make a difference. We made it down to the murder with plenty of time to spare, and afterward she seemed kind of surprised and pleased with how far I threw the rose. She dropped me off near the stage and told me to stay near the steps, an instruction that I had no qualms about obeying. After the finale, she returned for me, leading me to a corner of Studio 3 near the bar and removing my mask.

“Well, you were just perfect, weren't you!” she exclaimed as she handed it back to me. Then she was gone. I can't say I agree with her assessment – I definitely had a couple of iffy choices and dead-end paths (“surely the Dust Witch will be here any minute!”), especially if you factor in both shows that night. But that's the beauty of Temple Studios – behind every failed plan is another opportunity, so even if you kind of screw it up, things still have a way of working out.