AUDIENCE ANNIHILATED PART ONE: WOMEN ONLY TRAIN began its odd life several years ago. I was watching Hubert Sauper’s documentary Darwin’s Nightmare and became drawn in, not by the environmental message, but the strange relationships between the prostitutes and the fishermen. Disease had broken out in the brothels and no one would help. No one could help. No one seemed even remotely interested. All of my work, in one way or another deals with the need to rescue the helpless. Save the Children. See innocence as a virtue that should be protected rather than the incorrect accepted synonym for naivety. I had also been reading about two other things; Women Only Trains that have been developed in order to stop the growing number of rapes on public transportation, and the kidnap and murder of an American student while volunteering in South America – a terrible tragedy that became even worse in my mind when I learned that she had no interest in going there, but was required to volunteer or she would have failed her class.So. Disease. Kidnap. Women Only Trains. American Students. Forced volunteerism. A country which you understand very little and in which you are not welcome. Being alone. The inability, ineptitude or apathy of helping one in dire need. Romanticizing other cultures as something mystical with its own spirits and power.
I began to write this monster of a show and within 30 pages I came across a terrible reality. The lead character, this young American student, read like a fool. It began to look more like Hostel than a play. I know my work is always considered dark, but I do not and will not write that sort of thing. Without a worthy lead, the show is doomed. So I killed it…
The show as it is today:
I am obsessed with haunted houses. My one vacation a year is spent at Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando. This year I visited 18 haunted houses! People have asked me what the deal is with my love for these things. It’s simple. They terrify me, but I always feel safe. It’s the safety that draws me in. Seriously.
I had always wanted to create a haunted house of my own. Once when I was 15 I did design one but was thrown out after they saw my finale room: a beautiful Christmas scene with two children eating Santa Claus (18 years later I saw the same scene in a haunted house in Orlando - the Christmas themed haunted house has become widely used.) Anyway, I wanted to create a haunted house like no other - one that dealt with psychological terror rather than pop scenes and people banging cans and yelling, “GET OUT!” I also wanted the Audience to be able to experience the entire house alone. I wanted the experience to contain a plot and interesting characters which you would get to know as the story evolved. Then one night it just fell together. What if I removed the lead from WOMEN ONLY TRAIN and replaced her with an Audience member? Most likely just a theatre experiment. You certainly couldn’t sustain a show by letting only 1 to 4 people in at a time, but an experiment that I was too curious about to ignore. I knew that some people would not be able to sit in the hot seat so we came up with a seating and lighting design for them to see the show that would still leave the “lead” utterly alone. But for those who choose to play the “lead”, it is one Hell of a ride.
I hope you enjoy this 15 minute experiment in psychological terror. I hope you let yourself go. And above all –
I hope you feel safe.
- Jeremy Menekseoglu
