Hotel Methuselah

Story

Harry works as a night porter in a hotel in a city somewhere in Europe that’s in the throes of war. Despite the distant sounds of gunfire and shelling, he likes the calm and loneliness of his work. He’s thankful that all he has to do is book the guests in and show them to their rooms. But Harry has a problem and it’s one he’s desperately trying to solve. He can’t remember how he got to the hotel, or what he did before. He’s not even sure Harry’s his real name.

A strange couple interrupt Harry’s evenings at his desk, taunting him with stories of his forgotten past. Suddenly, a woman arrives, looking for a room for the night. He signs her in. They talk. They have a drink. They end up in bed together. As she explains, “It’s what lonely people do when they think their world’s coming to an end.” She tells him a story that he thinks he’s heard before. She tells him a story that begins to explain why the hotel is filled with strange sounds and whispering voices, why when he picks up the phone in the dead of night all he can hear are his own words, echoing down the line: “hello, hello, can I help you, can I help you?”

She tells him a story that begins to explain why he keeps running through the hotel corridors to Room 14, where a woman lies dead on a bed with a gun in one hand and a photograph in the other.

She tells him about his past, a tale of his own damnation. But still Harry can’t remember. That’s how he suffers. His punishment is to endure this story over and over again.

Credits

• Amy: Morven Macbeth
• Harry: Simon Wainwright
• Weird Man: Richard Malcolm /
  Dominic Fitch
• Weird Woman: Anna Wilson-Hall

Andrew Quick is a writer and theorist of contemporary performance who teaches Theatre Studies at Lancaster University. He has collaborated regularly with imitating the dog since 1998 and has recently published a book with The Wooster Group.

Pete Brooks is a founder member of Impact Theatre Co-operative and

Insomniac Productions and has made and toured performance works all over the world. Past projects include The Carrier Frequency, Place in Europe, Claire de Luz, L’acscensore and Peepshow.

Simon Wainwright is a founding member of the company and practicing visual artist. He specialises in the technical and visual aspects of the work from animation to film editing and online media. He is also a member of UK band Hope and Social.

Neil Boynton trained as a composer and clarinettist at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He has researched and published on the work of Viennese composer Anton Webern. His recent compositions include SkyWriting and Rush (both in collaboration with Emma Rose).

Laura Hopkins is an internationally renowned designer whose recent works include The Storm (The Globe), Hamlet, Faustus, and Othello (the Royal Theatre, Northampton), Mercury Fur (Paines Plough), Elixir of Love (New Zealand Opera) and Carnesky’s Ghost Train.

imitating the dog

Imitating the dog — are one of the UK’s leading performance companies, constantly satisfying audiences and critics with their savvy design and innovative testing of theatrical and narrative form. "imitating the dog, a company at the forefront of testing the nature of theatre" - The Guardian

imitating the dog formed in Leeds in 1998. They have produced five major touring works including Hotel Methuselah: Einmal ist Kenimal (once is never) (1999) Ark (2000) Guilty Pleasures (2001), Five Miles and Falling (2002/3) Kellerman (2009) and Tales from the Bar of Lost Souls (2009/10) as well as numerous smaller works and educational projects. itd projects are regularly funded by Arts Council England, alongside commissions by the Nuffield Theatre and Leeds Metropolitan Studio Theatre.

imitating the dog make performance work that experiments with the role of story-telling and narrative in the contemporary theatrical experience. They make innovative use of digital media, design and physical performance to create off-kilter worlds within which public and private obsessions - identity, death, love and sexuality - are explored.