Dread Falls Theatre's Father Dagon Comes to The Crypt, Manchester

Dread Falls Theatre is bringing their immersive gothic performance, Father Dagon, to The Crypt in Manchester, featuring physical story-telling, spoken word, and live improvised music.

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Date published: 29th Apr 2015

Dread Falls Theatre continues the 2015 UK tour of their latest immersive theatre piece, Father Dagon with performances in Manchester. The third run of the tour will take place on the 28th through the 30th of May at The Crypt, which is part of St. Philip's Church in Salford. Father Dagon is influenced by the works of American horror author H. P. Lovecraft, and is written and directed by company owner Victoria Snaith. The performance embraces the trend in experiential theatre that places audience members in a stream of intertwining stories, which has gained tremendous popularity among fringe theatre enthusiasts following the success of shows such as Punchdrunk's Drowned Man. Dread Falls Theatre expands on this form by telling the stories within Father Dagon using the company?s combination of movement-based drama, spoken word, and innovative sound design that includes live improvised dark ambient music.

Lovecraft, has been called the father of modern horror fiction by many literary figures and scholars, including Stephen King and Ramsey Campbell. Taking into account that Lovecraft claims, ?the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown,? Snaith looks to generate this sense of ?Lovecraftian? fear in Father Dagon. ?[This strong emotion] is the inspiration when transferring his work from page to stage. By creating a performance where the audience are free to roam, [Dread Falls Theatre has] taken away the comfortable space between audience and performer, therefore creating a feeling of unknowing and fear.? Snaith chooses to employ physical storytelling instead of aural narrative, to create an unknown language, ?much like that of Lovecraft?s creatures.? Furthermore, the show extends this fearfulness associated with ambiguity by incorporating live, improvised music in the sound design, creating an astmosphere of unknowing through music performed on unusal and homemade instruments that have unfamiliar the timbres. The live musicians will include vertern improvisers and experimental musical instrument makers raxil4, Mu, and pecussionist Charlie Collins.

Dread Falls Theatre will follow this run of shows by taking Father Dagon to several cities within the UK throughout the rest of the year; projecting Nottingham and Cambridge to be the next cities on the tour. The four Manchester performances of Father Dagon will be held on 28th, 29th, and 30th of May at The Crypt at St Philip's Church, Salford, Manchester, M3 6FR. Tickets are on sale now via Skiddle at https://www.skiddle.com/groups/dreadfallstheatre.