CurtainUp
CurtainUp

The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features, Annotated Listings
www.curtainup.com


HOME PAGE

SITE GUIDE

SEARCH

REVIEWS

REVIEW ARCHIVES

ADVERTISING AT CURTAINUP

FEATURES

NEWS
Etcetera and
Short Term Listings


LISTINGS
Broadway
Off-Broadway

NYC Restaurants

BOOKS and CDs

OTHER PLACES
Berkshires
London
California
New Jersey
DC
Connecticut
Philadelphia
Elsewhere

QUOTES

TKTS

PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS

LETTERS TO EDITOR

FILM

LINKS

MISCELLANEOUS
Free Updates
Masthead
Writing for Us
A CurtainUp London London Review
It Felt Like A Kiss


Sex appeal is the vibrance you find apparent in a young kitten.— Quote from film star in Adam Curtis' film
As a part of the Manchester International Festival Felix Barrett of theatre company Punchdrunk has collaborated with BBC filmmaker Adam Curtis and with musician Damon Albarn and the Kronos Quartet to create It Felt Like a Kiss. Part installation, part documentary film, part intense participation, this is a unique event. The genesis was documentary film maker Adam Curtis' desire to make a documentary that would be more emotionally involving than TV's more usual political journalism.

What evolved with Felix Barrett was a triparteid performance on five floors in a disused office block in Manchester's Spinningfields area. Arrive early and then an efficient woman ensures you read the clip board, the warning that the floor surface may be uneven, that there are steps and that the show is not for those of nervous disposition (Should I leave now?) or with a heart condition or wearing anything other than sensible shoes (I got away with Birkenstocks but don't risk being turned away).

The audience walk in groups of nine (this time no masks or cloaks, and no silence) and separated at twenty minute intervals through rooms with still lifes of America in the 1950s, full of standard lamps, black and white TVs and family photographs with dummies where there would have been people. In many rooms there are books about the American Dream by Norman Mailer. Some of the rooms are whited out townscapes with neat rows of white houses with dark trees, maybe after the settling of a post holocaust dust— or maybe conveying the uniformity of white America. Whatever they are there for, they make you think. There are also offices and laboratories in some of which a silent film plays over and over again of a woman screaming, terror in her eyes. Another room is full of silver birch trees like a scene out of Chekhov.

People who have seen Punchdrunk's work before rush in to eagerly assemble clues as to what is to come. We stumble into a room where a film is playing and can take a chair for the best part of half an hour. A film about America with Kruschev and Nixon, about the CIA and the murders of JFK and Patrice Lumumba, of girls in full skirted frocks on the 1950s Prom dance floor, of chimpanzees in space, and about how Saddam Hussein came to power. We're told that the director of some of the James Bond films was employed to make a propaganda film for Saddam Hussein. We hear how ECT was used to "treat" homosexuals. The message is the unravelling of The American Dream and sure enough there is Norman Mailer being interviewed on a television programme. The music to the film is the iconic pop music of the 1950s with the killer song from Carole King, "He hit me and it felt like a kiss" a messed up message of sexuality and abuse.

There are shootings and the pictures start to break up. The advertisement for Persil talks about achievable whiteness. The origins of HIV are traced and Rock Hudson's sham marriage is exposed. The images are there of Hudson and Doris Day as the perfect Hollywood couple and later the film tells of his death from HIV. The film brings back to you the rooms you have walked through and makes you reflect on the images you saw there. This brings Curtis' film alive in a curious way, intensifying the experience.

As I thought about the disintegration of the American Dream, I thought also about England and the industrial wasteland the train had gone through on the way to Manchester, the loss of industry in the area of Staffordshire once known for its production of Wedgewood and Spode china , boot and shoe makers from Northampton, the woollen mills around Salford, disused buildings everywhere, boarded up.

It is not possible to say very much about the third part of It Felt Like a Kiss without giving away the synthesis as all audience members find themselves in their own nightmare. There are rooms where everything has been trashed and others where white coated doctors conduct experiments and mazes where you will be separated from your companions in long black tunnels. You have been told that it is important to stay together as a group of nine at this point. Are we Skinnerian rats in a behaviourist experiment learning a maze?

Fortunately for the faint hearted we have been told that red curtained doorways are the emergency exit for those who cannot take the frightening experience any longer. The Kronos Quartet plays its sonorous, sinister music but I sang snippets from the previous night's viewing of Forbidden Broadway to keep up my courage in those seemingly endless black tunnels of entrapment. I screamed at least twice and jumped out of my skin a few times. Would I recommend It Felt Like A Kiss? You Bet!

It Felt Like A Kiss
Created by BBC Filmaker Adam Curtis and director Felix Barrett
with original music composed by Damon Albarn and recorded performance by Kronos Quartet

Running time: Up to Two hours 45 minutes with no breaks
Box Office: 0844 815 4961
Booking to 19th July 2009 - returns only but worth asking about as so many booked such a long time ago
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 4th July 2009 performance at Quay House, Quay Street, Spinningfields, Manchester

REVIEW FEEDBACK
Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
  • I agree with the review of It Felt Like A Kiss
  • I disagree with the review of It Felt Like A Kiss
  • The review made me eager to see It Felt Like A Kiss
Click on the address link E-mail: esommer@curtainup.com
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V):

Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email . . . also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review.

London Theatre Tickets
Lion King Tickets
Billy Elliot Tickets
Mighty Boosh Tickets
Mamma Mia Tickets
We Will Rock You Tickets
Theatre Tickets
London Theatre Walks


Peter Ackroyd's  History of London: The Biography



London Sketchbook



tales from shakespeare
Retold by Tina Packer of Shakespeare & Co.
Click image to buy.
Our Review


©Copyright 2009,

GUCCI

|

Aluminium Chronograph

|

PEAK new fashion ladies venting air spring heighten casual sport shoes P8004E

|

Tiffany & Co Hook and Eye Ring

|

mbt shoes

|

MBT Shoes

|

Tiffany&Co Daisy 925 sterling silver rings

|

Rolex

|

Louis Vuitton

|

Affliction Boots

|

Nike Shoes

|

Nike Dunk

|

MP5 Wholesale

|

Atlanta Falcons

|

Abercrombie Pants Wholesale 002

|

Louis Vuitton

|

UGG Boots Mulberry Genuine Australia classic Tall Ugg Boots

|

GUCCI Handbags

|

UGG Boots Classic Argyle Knit Chocolate 5879

|

Louis Vuitton Business Card Holder Ebony

|

MBT Men's Kisumu Tan Sandals

|

MBT Chapa

|

ugg boots

|

MBT Kisumu 2 White Men's Sandals

|

Nike Shoes

|

Louis Vuitton Monogram Denim Messenger Bag PM m95865

|

Bailey Button Uggs

|

Sexy Costume QS0169

|

Phone Wholesale

|

Bikinis Sets

|

Wholesale

|

Car DVD Player

|

LV

|

Tourbillon

|

Tiffany tiffany replica ring

|

Superleggera J12 White

|

Tiffany

|

rolex

|

Mouse Wholesale

|

Nike Air Max 2003

|

Monogram Groom

|

GUCCI

|

Wholesale

|

Nike Air Max LTD (dark blue/white) No.372340

Elyse Sommer.
Information from this site may not be reproduced in print or online without specific permission from esommer@curtainup.com