Ticket for One: Fuerzabruta at the Camden Roundhouse

Friday, January 11th, 2013. Lunchtime.

I came back from a long and peaceful stay at my mum's house in Southern Spain yesterday. The day before, I spent some minutes hovering over the 'confirm flight change' button on the EasyJet website, desperately wanting to stay another week.

The only problem was, at the end of that week, I'd still have the problem of having to go home. Home to an empty flat. Home to the cold and grey of London in winter. Home to the office and the responsibilities of real life.

Plus I'd have a week's more work emails to deal with and a week's less holiday to take later in the year. So I decided to man up, finish packing, and get the heck on with it. Needless to say, the whole experience is proving somewhat traumatic.

I took off in bright sunshine, spent the entire flight next to a six-foot teenage boy with no concept of personal hygiene or personal space, and landed into thick fog. Two and a half hours and three modes of transport later, I finally reached aforementioned cold and empty flat, where Sky Plus had lost satellite signal and completely failed to record all the TV shows that were going to cheer me up.

Then, this morning, the greatest insult of all. The dreaded alarm clock. The dreaded office. 400-odd emails and a pressing deadline that caused me to skip lunch. I knew I shouldn't have come back...

But mid-way through the day, an email came in from my friend Jules. It said: 

If you can go to Fuerzabruta at the Roundhouse then DO, it's amazing and joyous! I went 7 years ago when they (Argentinian dance troupe) were last in town and then again last night.

I immediately googled Fuerzabruta and saw this:

'The biggest natural high in town and absolutely irresistible' - Daily Telegraph

Now, an irresistible natural high sounds like just the tonic for these post-holiday blues. BUT tickets are basically sold out, apart from tonight at 7pm. Who am I going to find to drop everything and come to the theatre with me on a Friday night? And anyway, over £40 for a STANDING ticket? Everyone, including me, is broke from the Christmas madness. Any other time, I would have just dropped the idea, saved myself the cash, and headed for home and a blanket on the sofa. But then it hit me. I have never in my life been to the theatre on my own. 

I don't know if this is unusual. I mentioned it to a couple of friends, all of whom seemed to have done it once or twice in the past. But to me, theatre is an experience I have always shared. Isn't half the fun to dissect it all afterwards? Isn't it a bit lonely and awkward to travel there alone, find your seat (or standing spot) alone, have an interval drink alone, and leave alone? ALL ALONE???

Well, sod it. I want my natural high. And perhaps going to the theatre alone will be a noteworthy right of passage, in this year of new experiences. I can't deny that it is slightly liberating, if also slightly scary, to hit 'confirm purchase' on a ticket for one, without reference to anyone else's pockets, preferences, or schedule. I'm not saying I want to live my life selfishly and alone. I don't. But since that's the position I am currently in I may as well explore it. After all, I won't learn anything new about myself tucked under a blanket on the sofa. So I'm booked and I'm about to dash home, eat the lunch I skipped, and make my way to the theatre on my own. Curtain up...

Ticket for one!

Later that evening…

I am home. Under a blanket on the sofa, eating leftover Christmas Stollen for supper. If I hadn’t gone out tonight I might be starting to worry…

Christmas Stollen. A beautiful thing. 

Earlier that evening...

The Camden Roundhouse is packed. I stand in the queue at the box office and watch people scanning the near horizon for their friends. I keep thinking I might see someone I know, unsure if that would be a good thing, or if I’d have to try and avoid them to complete the challenge. Either way, it doesn’t happen.

The hordes file into the Main Space, which is dark and thumping with percussive music. A group of hipsters greet each other to my left, and I bristle with rage as one of them exclaims: “oh my god, it’s just like Auschwitz, hahahahaha.” For all the extraordinary kindness and goodness in the world, there really is some seriously stupid, thoughtless idiocy. A rant rises in my chest but dies there, because I have no one to share it with. I move away, deeper into the crowd.

It’s only about ten minutes until the show starts, but it feels longer. I play solitaire on my phone and wonder if I’m a conspicuous loner, whilst at the same time realising that this is a ridiculous notion. Why would I be conspicuous? The only one acutely aware of the fact that I am here alone is, well, me. At this moment it also occurs to me how ridiculous it was that I tried on three different tops before coming out. But girls will be girls, even when there’s no one to see them, I suppose.

In this photograph, I carefully document my painstakingly chosen outfit. What a surprise. I am wearing black. So original, dahling.

Spoiler alert: If, by any chance, you have tickets for the London showing of Fuerzabruta over the next couple of weeks, you may prefer to read the below after you’ve seen it. The strange surprises are half the fun. Consider yourself warned!

The performance starts with huge puffs of smoke, shuddering drums, and a loud chant that is somewhere between mournful and rebellious. 

Guaira que sigue soplando. Guaira que sigue cantando. Guaira sera. Guaira sera. 

Even though I am not exactly sure what a Guaira is in Argentinian Spanish, the chant strikes chords within me, moves me somehow. A guira, whatever it may be (the wind from the sea? An instrument of some kind?) continues to blow, continues to sing.

The man who ran.

And then we descend into chaos, the Fuerzabruta (brute force) of the title. If I was a creator of theatre, this is what I would like to create. Noise, exhilaration, madness. A complete lack of coherence. On a giant treadmill, a man runs and is shot down over and over again, each successive shirt spattered with blood and then removed and thrown to the ground. He runs through walls of flying cardboard boxes. He hurtles up stairs and falls. He does all he can to rescue tables and chairs that spin away from him, though they are not his tables and chairs. Wind and fine rain blast his face, and ours. It snows strips of fluttering white tissue paper. Girls run back and forth through silver waves, shimmering on the walls. A man and woman struggle and swarm on opposite sides of a spinning disc, suspended from the ceiling.

When the huge (and I mean huge) trays of water begin to descend from the ceiling, bodies writhing in the swishing shallows, I know that I have seen this before, on the TV I think. Eurovision, maybe. (Eurovision Moscow, I discover when I get home.) 

The generally terrible camera on my phone gets big points for this picture.

The pools descend to just above our heads and the swimming, dancing girls fling themselves down with considerable violence. Everyone laughs nervously and we raise our palms to the flexible plastic separating us from the water. I am strangely, unusually aware of myself. This is stunning and magical, but I’m not lost in it. Maybe I'm trying too hard to have a good time.

The water descends.

I TOTALLY had this one! With the cherries!

Later, the audience crowd surfs a huge plastic sheet across the whole room. As it passes over me, the smell of it fills me with a wave of nostalgia, though for what I’m not sure. My Little Pony? I really love the smell of My Little Pony plastic. Don't judge me.

No no no, says my brain. It’s a bouncy castle! And of course, it is. It’s a giant bouncy castle, and we are inside it. Awesome. Old-fashioned aviators bounce above us, and then descend through holes in the dome to pluck up members of the audience. I confess to being somewhat disappointed that I am neither hoisted to the heavens nor – later - selected to have an exploding pizza box of glitter smashed over my head. I want to be part of this experience in a way that I can’t quite achieve. I think this is partly down to a distant, lingering regret that I did not pursue a career in the performing arts, and partly down to being alone tonight, and not quite liking it. I'm uneasy, half in and half outside of the experience.

This blurry man in a suit has a pizza box full of glitter exploded over his head. Now that's one way to unwind after a day at the office.

Somewhat abruptly, the show ends as it began, with drums and singing. The audience roars its appreciation and then shuffles into the crisp, cold night. It’s early, only 8.15pm, and people disperse to bars and restaurants. I start walking home, but it’s cold and I’m wearing a stupidly thin jacket, so when an empty taxi appears I grab it. You know the rest; blanket, sofa, cake etc… And that’s that. As far a new experiences go, it leans towards the anti-climactic. But I’m not in the least sorry that I went. It really was an amazing performance, packed with creativity and energy, well worth the price of the ticket, the cab ride, and the slight sense of solitude that accompanied the evening. I’m not sure solo theatre is my thing, but I’m pleased to know I can do it if I want to. Being brave, it transpires, doesn’t always mean doing something big. Curtain down.

Now, all this philosophising isn’t going to do me much good if it continues to be accompanied by sofa and cake. Thank goodness I’m getting up at silly o’clock tomorrow morning to do my first ever Bikram Yoga class.

Seventeen down, thirteen to go…

All by myself.

It is somehow apt that this post should mark the halfway point of the Thirty@30 experience. Challenge number fifteen is not one that I have chosen. It is not one that anyone has suggested. It is not, perhaps, an unusual challenge; millions of people all around the world do it every day. But for me, it is completely new. For the first time in my life, I am living on my own.

Aside from the fact that I neither drink nor own pyjamas, this is basically me...

I have had a few different living arrangements in my life. Home was mum and me, just the two of us for nigh-on eighteen years. Then university, where I had a small room in a beehive full of people my own age. After university, I worked two ski seasons in the French Alps, with trips to my mum and dad - respectively in Spain and London - in between. In France it was three girls to a room; the first time I had ever shared my sleeping space with anyone else for an extended period of time. When I moved back to London I took a room in the house of a friend. Then I moved in with my boyfriend. 

I suppose, technically, that I lived on my own when that relationship broke down, but I was already in love with Justin, and spent most of my time at his home. I never felt alone. Until, after nearly five years together, Justin moved out two weeks ago. This isn't the place for an evaluation of my relationship, but I need to state that this isn't Justin's fault. Or mine. It's just one of those stupid, inexplicable little disasters that happen along the way.

This is not a post about heartbreak, though right now my heart is broken. It has been broken before, and I suspect will break again, if I am granted life beyond the forthcoming end of the world, due in approximately twenty-four hours. I am writing this on December 20th, 2012. The Mayan calendar comes to an abrupt halt on the 21st, and there are people out there who are in possession of enough Spam and bottled water to survive the inevitable apocalypse. Personally, I have just purchased a box of FORTY TWO Ferrero Rocher, which I think will effectively serve the same purpose, as well as tasting considerably nicer than Spam. I have just eaten seven of them, but I'll slow down now. Honest. I will.

Oops.

So, here I am, thirty years old, living all on my own for the very first time. For the record, my ability to inhale Ferrero Rocher is not a direct consequence of this alteration in my co-habitation status. It is a power I have always possessed, and of which I am inordinately proud. I can do the same thing with satsumas. Anyway, I'm rambling. This is the first time in a while that I've written anything other than an email or a to-do list.

I'm taking one day at a time. For the first week, I didn't look at my flat. I came in from work and kept my head down. I put the telly on and stared stupidly at it until it was time to go to bed. I cried a lot. I tried not to see the vacant picture hooks, coat hooks or shelves. I very definitely did not look in the wardrobe that I knew was empty. After a week, I finally got out the hoover and redistributed the books, and life stopped being quite such a blur. I started to notice the odd details of this life for one, which are, in no particular order:

• Stuff lasts longer. Especially toilet paper.
• I can choose whatever I want to watch on the telly. There's never anything good on.
• When there is something good on, it’s kind of cruddy not to have someone to share it with.
• I worry a lot about locking myself out of the house. Getting keys cut is unexpectedly expensive.
• The laundry basket has become magically bottomless.
• Late at night, when you’re half asleep, it’s difficult to remember that you’re alone in the bed.
• I can make the bed beautifully without even pulling the duvet off. Score.
• I can go a long time without talking to anyone, but most days will talk to myself at least once (OK, more than that.)
• I am, however, doing a good job at not being scared of knife-wielding psychopaths hiding in the empty wardrobe.
• A hot water bottle is a magical thing.
• Christmas is not a great time for the newly single. Bah Humbug. I went Christmas shopping today and came back with a four-pack of wrapping paper and the aforementioned mega-box of Ferrero. No presents. Not a one.
• It’s grand to have whatever you want for supper, but things don’t taste quite as good if you don’t have someone else to appreciate your cooking.
• Being home alone is survivable. Arriving to an empty house feels, some days, like the Mayan end of the world.

I’ve just realised that this post kind of is about heartbreak. Sorry about that. I’m still in the very first phases of this solo living, and my observations probably bear no resemblance to the experiences of someone who has lived alone for a long time, or lives alone by choice. Maybe that is part of the point of writing this all down. For myself. For posterity. Every experience we have in this life is, at the end of the day, ours alone, even if we live with a family, a partner, a parent or a friend. Everyone sees and feels things differently. Which is why it’s so enriching to try new things for oneself. Even scary ones, Even lonely ones.

Who knows how long this particular challenge will last? Only time will tell, but possibly only another twenty hours and thirty-five Ferrero Rochers, if the Mayans have any say in it. If not, I’ll be back soon, probably significantly fatter, slightly crazier, and still without ever having eaten so much as a mouthful of Spam. And no, you can forget that idea right now. I draw the line at Spam. I'd prefer the apocalypse.

Fifteen down, fifteen to go…