Zastrozzi @ Dragon Hall
Thoroughly enjoyable and well worth a tenner of anyone’s money
Loosely based on a gothic novella by Shelley (Percy not Mary) Crude Apache's Zastrozzi - the Master of Discipline was as dark as you might expect, perhaps even more so.
There were crucifixes, red wine, lightning, constant rain, whips, sword fights, S&M, virgins in long white dresses and dagger-toting, corset-wearing seductresses. Add lines like “death is a continuing process of simplification” and it doesn’t get much more gothic on a Wednesday in Norwich.
The twisted and often violent plot was hosted by Dragon Hall, an ideal location with a high, arched ceiling, wooden staircases and bespoke Bloody Zastrozzi cocktails. The story is, at its most simple, one of revenge, but on a more complex note it deals with the question of culpability and existentialism with references to Camus’ myth of Sisyphus. No, seriously. Or at least that’s the conclusion reached in the pub afterwards. The first act was a little slow going, with the balance between comedy, black comedy and just plain blackness slightly unbalanced. By the second act it felt as though the cast had got into the swing of things (being opening night n’all) and everything went a bit crazy. In a good way. The action picked up and everyone started dying (spoiler alert). The sword fights were brilliant, the characters felt more genuine, and the audience more invested, and the plot got interestingly twisted. And bloody.
In essence Zastrozzi was like an Edgar Allan Poe story. Wordy, full of death and insanity, with a point no one can quite get their head around. Thoroughly enjoyable and well worth a tenner of anyone’s money.
Lenore
