Sudden Loneliness Gift – Water and Fire Explores Our Connection to Trauma
Trauma isn’t gentle. Trauma shakes people up, degrades them, shatters their life, makes them feel worthless, and departs suddenly without providing any closure. It can result in the laughter of a child no longer heard, an empty bed, or a hallway of nothing but old memories contained in photographs. When trauma strikes, the world becomes hazy and a void descends upon what was once a pleasant reality. It is the clash of water and fire.
In Nocturnal Fandango’s sophomore year, entitled The Sudden Loneliness Gift, they have created a meta narrative that thrusts guests into a world in which creator Jason has lost his partner, Kevin, to tragic circumstances. Through exploring the grief Jason faces as well as the trauma and pain unleashed upon him, participants explore the darkest recesses of the human mind—both Jason’s and their own. During Water and Fire, the personification of trauma along with themes of memory and loss allow participants to fully come in touch with their true selves in a surprisingly personal experience.
To further personalize the experience, guests are offered the chance to set their own level of intensity for this experience—and depending on one’s answers, they may face different levels of trauma. Scenes will differ for audience members depending on what The Organizers know about them, and also what preferences they have communicated.
Exploring a taste of the fantastical and channeling Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Water and Fire brings participants face to face with the mysterious Luna Corporation. This company offers guests the chance to deposit memories that appear to be traumatic. But poignant questions are asked throughout in a meaningful manner: do these memories help us grow; are we ever ready to face trauma; and what does the loss of a memory feel like?
After speaking to a Luna Corporation employee regarding a consultation, I was given an address to the Park Plaza Lodge. But what followed once I entered room #108, I was not ready for. I encountered a manifestation of Trauma itself. I was gagged, beaten, slapped, stripped, choked, and smothered. With a physical reminder that my Trauma was present, I then stepped into the corporate office of the Luna Corporation.
In stark contrast to the dark, dingy hotel, The Luna Company was a utopian office environment filled with elegance, a modern architectural design, and abstract art. But the white facades hold a darkness beyond that of even the hotel. A room filled with employees working tirelessly transforms seamlessly into a classroom, with audience members being taught a lesson by Trauma itself. Something light and beautiful suddenly diverts into dark and nefarious.
Conversely, actors playing the Luna employees provide a safe space to explore your emotions and actively engage with them. The actor playing Luke exudes charisma and energy and offers participants the ability to share personal traumas; and Ollie provides a space in which audience members are able to learn more about Luna in a rather seductive environment. But it is Trauma, the animal-masked tormentors of the show, that provide the physicality that guests have come to expect with a Nocturnal Fandango experience. In an impressive classroom scene that shifts before your eyes, guests exit reality and enter a fiction in which Trauma wants to teach guests a lesson. They treat you like inferior beings, delivering pain with each wrong answer (and there will be many wrong answers). Associating pain with pure trauma allows participants to understand that feeling pain from trauma is a human trait, yet the importance is in accepting that pain instead of denying that it exists. Every lash leaves a bruise; each bruise a cure.
An odd, yet apt comparison can be drawn between Disney’s Inside Out and Water and Fire. Just like Disney’s movie focuses on how “just like any other emotion, sadness makes us, us,” the same can be said for this event. Water and Fire drives home the theme that even though trauma might be a painful memory to confront, we wouldn’t be who we are today without experiencing it. Why give up a memory, if that memory makes you, you? Memory constitutes one of the building blocks that shape the present. Even though we might sometimes like to ignore or forget that the scars of the past are branded in our flesh, remembering and embracing this means understanding the true nature of trauma. Trauma isn’t gentle, but acceptance leads to inner growth. Water and Fire managed to solidify the fact that traumatic memory is a parasite: one that consumes your energy, one that darkens your day. Although we as human beings might never be able to truly face our trauma, acknowledging its existence and everlasting presence is the first step towards the cure for wellness.
Nocturnal Fandango’s third event will send participants on a road trip to Joshua Tree for their final fully realized event of the season, an overnight experience entitled Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. For more information on The Sudden Loneliness Gift, check their website or follow their Instagram.
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