The Perfect City. Where I Melted.

I went to see a separate drama
I went to see another show
The drama lost its otherness and
It was at that point I began to know
That 'I' and 'you' aren't different — No Way!
There is no line 'twixt 'you' and 'me'
If 'I' and 'you' have meaning — Do we?
It's not for you or me to say.

So it was for me, as these lines circled round that I had trouble focusing on the difference between a watcher and watched as the debut performance of 'The Perfect City' unfolded before me in the Friends Meeting House in Cambridge. Although truly speaking they came in from the side, gesticulating in conversation one with another, singing and bewailing about what might happen next in they were found to be holding an illegal Meeting. From all sides they came, backward and forward and round about ↻. I was greeted by the beautiful face of Timothy Benjamin, a Peter Pan of an actor. Together with Jamie Noar, who plays William Penn singing their heartfelt dreams of the inner spirit reflected in the beauty of this seeming external world in front of us. Their dreams resonated with my own youthful aspirations, their love was my love and when Máirín Miller came on, the dewy moisture in her eyes caused mine to well up too and holding back the tears wasn't an easy matter.

The actors sang in stereo, the actors' voices were quadraphonic, playing and dancing behind you, in front of you, sitting beside you and falling on the ground at your feet. And in true Greek tragedic manner, the beatings, whippings and hanging of Quakers were performed off-stage, in this case in the room adjoining the main Meeting Hall upstairs. Vocal indeed were the sounds of the wailings and sufferings, and many a head was turned.

When I slept that night, the story and lyrics were floating in my dreams and as this week progresses the story is seldom far from my mind and it has roosted to take up place in my heart. 

See The Perfect City