Last year, when I attended Punchdrunk Theatre’s The Drowned Man, I—like the other audience members—journeyed through the multi-level environs and voyeuristically watched the drama unfold with a mask reminiscent of Eyes Wide Shut. Victoria Snaith’s Father Dagon takes place in a much more intimate venue at the Rag Factory near Brick Lane and immediately drags the audience into a sea of madness, like some kind of violent rip current. After a tweed-wearing H.P. Lovecraft opens the play with an inspired statement about the phantasmic wonderfulness of dreams (from the short story Celephais), he invites his friends to explore the beach and his home.
While he spends his time crunching keys on his typewriter and interacting with audience members (at one point I stole a look at his cluttered desk and he ordered me to stop burglarising his ideas), four other main characters—all insane—deal the with machinations of a dark emissary of the mythic Old Ones. This cowled high priest of ‘The Esoteric Order of Dagon’ has a powerfully hypnotic effect on everyone, and sends his vivacious Deep One to assault two troubled men and a bumbling old woman. Eventually all the characters’ path’s meld and Lovecraft himself descends into the chaos, ululating Cthulu gobbledygook in a final overture along with his possessed associates.
The entire production is a fitting interpretation of Lovecraft’s Cosmicism, with enough terror, eroticism, and mystery to rattle and puzzle even the hardiest fans. The set is also imbibed with a nervous energy thanks to the heart-pumping and screeching sound design and instrumentation. The ambient music never really stops and drifts between psychotic beats and monotonous droning which can be likened to a primeval hymn of the ocean. It’s too bad the show’s no longer running, though I’m sure Ms. Snaith is in the process of orchestrating something else to twist our minds. I didn’t know insanity could be so much fun.
For more on Father Dagon, Dread Falls Theatre, and Victoria Snaith see below: