When someone invites you to review The Bedroom at the Adelphi, the first inclination is possibly to consult TripAdvisor, but in this instance ‘The Bedroom’ is a site specific performance piece taking place within the Edwardian hotel.
Performance artist Izzie Major promises an intimate, interactive, surreal show and, whilst the description might intentionally make it difficult to form expectations, the product certainly does what it says on the packaging.
A small audience group assemble in the hotel lobby and at the allotted time we are sent up in the lift, to be met on the second floor by an almost ghost-like maid, who seems simultaneously charmed and perplexed to see us arrive. After a slow, measured and somewhat ritualistic series of interactions both with the audience and the fabric of the building, the maid leads us into a small suite, where we are each placed carefully within the first of the three dimly lit rooms that we will visit during our stay, and left in the company of a standard lamp.
Over the next hour we will pass, via a bathroom, into a bedroom, and finally return to the sitting room we started in, and in each space we find ourselves being spoken to and, to some extent, interacting with a number of objects that we would normally consider inanimate.
Many psychologists hold that sleep and dreams are a mechanism that enables the brain to consolidate long term memory. The fact that the manner of our arrival and ushering about serves to set our minds in an almost dreamlike state makes a lot of sense here, because the overwhelming thrust of the performance is about memory - not so much our own memory, but that of the things that surround us. As we are spoken to by the room we are given an unsettling sense that everything from the furniture to the fabric of the building has amassed a body of memory from all its encounters with the people who have passed through these spaces.
To describe the experience in too much detail would be to defuse its power, but suffice to say that by the time we reach the closing part of the performance and drink a toast to our own enduring memory, we are left with a rather different perspective on our relationship with our surroundings.
Surreal costume designs from Alex Herring complement Craig Sinclair's careful set-dressing of the rooms, which exaggerate the age and history of the Adelphi, and there is something oddly jarring about our return to the lift and the daylight. It takes a while to re-acclimatise to the bustle of the city on the pavement outside.
The Bedroom is devised and performed by Izzie Major, along with Sinclair, Frankie Gold and Piotr Marchewka, and showcases the work of emerging artists from Liverpool Hope University.
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| The Bedroom promotional image © Andrew AB photography |
Star Rating - 4 stars
This review was originally written for publication by Good News Liverpool
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