Boy meets world

The more patient among you may remember that I've never been a fan of contemporary dance (previous opinions here and here).

But that was before I entered the world of Punchdrunk's Faust (based on Goethe's story), a cocktail of dance, drama, song, acrobatics, superstition and sheer balls-out eroticism.

The production puts the audience at the heart of events, offering the chance to follow any of the 20 or so characters throughout five labyrinthine storeys of a disused warehouse doubling as a small 1950s town in the southern United States. Occasionally, if lucky, individuals in the audience get drawn into the story, given the chance to interact with the cast, if only for a moment, as Faust wends his way inevitably towards Hell.

It's an incredible piece of theatre. Yet for one who delights in words, it's the relative lack of dialogue (at least in the way of English) that is one of the most captivating elements of the production.

Most of the communication between characters plays out in the form of body language and contemporary dance and, within this new context, I suddenly found myself appreciating the art form. I could see why people cared.

But that's not where it ends.

It's once having seen the show that its real magic begins - having been laid in the audience member's mind, Faust's offspring nests and grows, making it truly difficult to think of anything else for days afterwards. The sounds, the sights, the darkness, they're all fixtures in one's consciousness.

It isn't just theatre - it's total immersion in a world of debauchery and sorcery, and one that plays on the innate appetite for voyeurism. My words can't do it justice.

Once isn't enough, yet repeat trips just seem to increase the dependency. It's performance as narcotic. My second trip only served to make the desire stronger (little matter that I'd fallen deeply in lust with a cast member or two).

But on Saturday the show's six-month run (itself an extension of the original six weeks) comes to an end, just a couple of weeks after I'd been introduced to it.

So now I'm sad, because I'll never get to visit that world again. Not just because of the sense of mystery it brings, not even because it's the most sexually-charged environment I've been in for much longer than I care to admit.

It's mostly because it both sates and sparks a desire for real creativity in which I feel ordinary life is so lacking, and I don't know when I'll find that again.