“The Abattoir Pages” brings together characters, ideas, images, sounds, smells and senses from the old stories of long ago to give guests of this extraordinary experience the opportunity to understand what lies behind the myths and the people who helped create them. In so doing the authentic and true roots of Halloween are honoured.
To describe this piece as simply a performance seems incorrect, even though there are actors who perform throughout. Neither is it just an exhibition, even though works of art hang upon the walls, nor is it only an installation despite the interactive and sensory nature of the work. “The Abattoir Pages” is something to experience, to feel, and to react to. Artistic Director, John Harrigan has brought together artists working in a wonderful variety of forms, and their work is displayed throughout the venue. Guests are told that these pieces constitute the archive of Helen Mayer, a tortured writer whose work is inspired and shaped by the infamous Abattoir Pages and the information therein. There is a mystery to solve, and a space to explore in order to uncover what these pages may contain, and only through piecing together snippets of information is it possible to fully realise the thrall Ms Mayer casts her readers into. To describe too much more would be both unfair and inaccurate however, as it would be simply impossible for any guest at this strange party to have the same experience as any other. Each hears, sees and feels completely different things, that become personal and which strangely grow in the dark for several nights afterwards.
When we meet Helen Mayer in person, we find that she is in Gwyllt, and it is this state that provides the horror… The expanse of one’s creative mind, wherein people and events that have been constructed overlap with the real, and the space between the imaginary and factual overlaps. This interlocking and interdependence of truth with fact long ago provided the basis of the myths and fables contained within “The Abattoir Pages”. One of the most striking relationships that I reacted to, although other visitors may not even hear or meet them, are a mutually destructive pair of lovers being slowly driven mad by their need for each other and their strange revulsion at themselves. This pairing is based on the true story of a young man around 600 AD who was forced to eat the heart of his lover by his enemy, and who then went mad with guilt, and fled to the woods to live in solitude. The woods, whether mythic, imaginary or real have long provided shelter for those the rest of the world does not or cannot understand, and it is those that have found refuge there that move around “The Abattoir Pages”.
Finding ways to share the story of Helen Mayer’s work has been an ambition of Foolish People’s founder and Artistic Director, John Harrigan, for some time. “The Abattoir Pages” in fact serves as a prologue to Helen Mayer’s final work, “Pleasure” that Harrigan is working towards realising in a similar form. However, “Pleasure” is a full novel, and in breathing life into the four pages that provide the basis for “The Abattoir Pages” Harrigan enlisted nearly 60 artists, performers and designers. “Pleasure” therefore will undoubtedly be his most ambitious project to date.
For that project, John also hopes to renew the mutually respectful collaboration with James Elphick of Guerilla Zoo, who have facilitated the creative realisation of this piece, enabling Foolish People’s Producer Lucy Allin, and John Harrigan to bring “The Abattoir Pages” to the Old Abattoir in Farringdon.
Amongst the work of the twenty-one artists involved in this project are commissioned works, such as the sensational paintings by P Emerson Williams, and intricate masks by Jules Newman as well as pieces that somehow seem to have been waiting for this project in order to find their natural home, such as the dizzying collection of jars provided by Lorraine Clarke.
And although the Old Abattoir is an absolute dream of a place for experimental theatre, it provides its own incredible challenges for anyone attempting to create an atmosphere that doesn’t immediately terrify, but in fact seduces and intrigues through the dark and damp. That this piece achieves that is certainly in part down to the skilful sound design, again by P Emerson Williams, joined by Victoria Karlsson and Atoine Bertin.
When I met John Harrigan the morning after my own experience of The Abattoir Pages, I found that he would not be drawn on how “real” Helen Mayer and her work are, except to confirm that they do exist. There is a mystical force apparent in this work and in Harrigan himself - perhaps heightened by the fact our meeting was held in the abattoir itself, which is no less atmospheric in the daytime.
As an artist he is immersed in his work, and this passion has been gleefully absorbed by his cast of performers who, despite his concerns about their cold toes, insist on performing for over 3 hours in bare feet on stone floors in order to feel more authentically part of the work. This intangible intensity finds itself infecting guests to the piece also, as John tells me of a person who, on seeing John’s vulnerable mute character alone in the dark, felt compelled to stay and hold his hand for over half an hour.
If you are looking for the jumps and squeals of Hollywood horror, then you will not find them in “The Abattoir Pages”. However, a visit may uncover more than you expect or even wish as you wander through the chambers of this most fascinating space. To be given the opportunity to exist even for a short time in these powerful rooms stained with emotion, pain, suffering, and the very basest natures of life is a privilege, and “The Abattoir Pages” brings the voices and spirits contained within those walls out to play. Expectations, desires and preconceptions should be released as you walk through the doorway, and only then may their many mysteries be revealed to you this Halloween.
Article and Review originally appeared at Notes From The Underground.
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