Electric Hotel is a site-specific show directed by David Rosenberg and choreographed by Frauke Requardt. It takes place in a hotel, a purpose-built four-storey set, placed next to a development site at King's Cross – a great location remote from the busy roads and other buildings. Electric Hotel is a soap opera in a life-size doll house consisting of one scene, more or less, presented to us several times, each time following the perspective of a different character. The audience is seated outside the hotel and given headsets for the sound. Dusk is turning to night, as the piece begins.

LM

The set was great. The sound and light cool and atmospheric. The performance was tight. But still the drama lacked... pathos. In between lightness and slapstick, we were given the impression that something scary and criminal would unfold in the narrative, yet, when it finally turned dark and sinister, it seemed too sudden. I felt they had skipped the most important section. The section where lightness meets darkness and you feel deeply disappointed that the world is so cruel after all. I completely missed a buildup. There had been hints but no buildup. I should mention that I had not found 'Electric Hotel' very amusing (despite it trying) and therefore probably was not ready to take it seriously either. The change of state surprised me like a mood swing due to PMS - I know it is coming, but I do not see it coming...

They were going for a bizarrely comical, melodramatic effect, like that of David Lynch (David & David, ha! I just realised that), but as you can tell I was not overwhelmed with either fright or laughter.

I did think the choreography could have brought out some real quirkiness, but the movements were not what made the characters (the plot did), which made the dancing seem redundant. Except when a camp country singer at the top of the building moved his jelly legs while he sang - here movement and character became one. I did enjoy watching the pregnant woman move too, but only because I thought she was a beautiful dancer, not because her dance did much for me in the context of 'Electric Hotel'.

Although I did not react to the piece emotionally or feel that the characters were as intriguing as they could have been, especially physically, the unfamiliar surroundings and the performers being inside this doll house hotel was exciting simply because it was different. But that is not enough.

RH

Electric Lynch.

You put on your wireless headphones, then take them off and switch them on, and then put them back on again, and soft jazz is soothing you, as you worry about those dark clouds emerging out Eastwards with promise of rain and you think you feel some phantom raindrops on your neck and you realise you do not wear enough clothes to sit outside for an hour in the rain and watch the follies unfold behind the plexiglass facade of the life-size dollhouse in front of you. Such thoughts pass through your skull as you wait for the ‘Electric Hotel’ to begin.

Then the drapes go up, a woman crawl out of an non-existing roof-top pool with such perfectly timed sound effects in your headphones (dripping water, the squeak of wet rubber flip flops, the woollen static of a towel) that disbelief is thoroughly suspended, and the mood is already Lynchesque as she steps into the disco-balled bar and the laughter seems near, yet, alien. Such are the thoughts in your head as the ‘Electric Hotel’ takes shape before your eyes.

Through repeating the same, almost dialogue-free, story again and again, a narrative slowly emerges, each repetition revealing a little more of the post-modern, mysterious (read: utterly incomprehensible) story of paranoia and the blurring of lines between the sane and the insane, reality and fiction. Perhaps you are just a simpleton, but you prefer your stories to make sense, yet, it does not matter: although far from perfect, ‘Electric Hotel’ is so full of ambience, music and mystery that you forget all about the threat of rain and the chilly summer air. Such are the thoughts that pass through your mind, as you let your applause rain over the performers.

'Electric Hotel' by David Rosenberg & Frauke Requardt, 2-26 June 2010 via Sadler's Wells.