Site Reporter, London, 30 May 2017
3 actors have spent 48 solid hours on Nemesis Inferno at Thorpe Park in order to “better understand the physical sensation of repetition”.
The trio – Beatrice, Ellie and Sargon – endured the ride from 8am on Saturday 20th May to 8am on Monday 22nd May, all in the name of art.
“We’re preparing for a new show,” Ellie told our reporter shortly after she’d completed the hair-raising marathon. “There’s a special kind of state your body enters when it’s been performing the same action over and over, consistently, for ages. In our new project it’s important for us to full embody this – like muscle memory – in order to present the work to an audience truthfully.”
“That’s absolutely it,” continues Sargon. “There’s no room for pretending in our new project. We have to perform the absolute truth, never an interpretation of the truth, and that’s a hard thing for an actor to do, over and over again. For one thing, people in the audience keep thinking they see things from different perspectives – we have to be absolutely unyielding with our presentation of the FACTS.”
So why the rollercoaster?
“Well,” explained Beatrice, “it’s really a case of endurance as method. If we can prove to ourselves that we can withstand our bodies’ need for movement and variation – whether rest or food or stretching our legs – even in environments of extreme physical stress and repetition, we are less likely to deviate from the authentic events in our forthcoming play. I mean, what happens in it really happens, if you know what I mean; we have to make sure we are resolute and unflinching, every single time.”
A spokesperson for Thorpe Park commented: “Here at Thorpe Park, we love working with artists, and look forward to the swift payment of our invoice for the costs of additional overnight ride staff.”
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