Dragonbutter | 2021
Warehouse on 2nd and Spring Garden Streets
Dragonbutter is an immersive, multisensory, interactive experience that takes place in multiple themed rooms in a warehouse at 2nd and Spring Garden streets. Though members of JUNK perform, it is not a performance to passively view. Rather, ticket holders participate, and each show has limited capacity. Dragonbutter inserts participants into a science-fiction video-game quest, one that involves familiar concepts and activities—such as a mad scientist and his unruly creations—as well as solving puzzles and fighting enemies. However, the premise, characters, and setting are entirely invented. The result is unique and impressively conceived.
Dragonbutter draws inspiration from pandemic video-game playing and the city’s gentrification, as well as from JUNK’s previous work with virtual reality, escape rooms, hoverboards, and labyrinths. The journey begins on the sidewalk outside the warehouse, where performers in white coveralls provide walkie-talkies that issue instructions. Participants then enter a decontamination chamber before proceeding into the fictional Deos Labs, where a Dr. Livingston conducted genetic experiments during the 1980s. Now slated for demolition to make way for luxury condos, the building is being cleaned out by Professor Doghter (pronounced “Doctor” and played by Kyle Yackoski) and his lab assistants Verga (Mauri Walton) and Eft (Jess Adams). These characters need the help of Dragonbutter participants to uncover the mysteries of Dr. Livingston’s work and rid the building of its results.
This mission begins with receiving equipment in the Deos Lab store, followed by entering a classroom to puzzle out mysteries of gene splicing, '80s fashion, and more. The journey gets increasingly funky and fun, from GMO material emerging through a sphincter in the wall to evidence of Dr. Livingston’s creations in various states of animation. A highlight is the hypnotic Chaos Room, where dramatic light, sound, and stage design induce a movement trance in Eft. Dancer/aerialist Adams’s strength, grace, and control are mesmerizing as she spins, swings, and hangs upside down. Desirée Hall gives a standout performance, first folding her body around a set of mechanically spinning wheels in the biomechanical activation chamber, then embodying Dr. Livingston’s creature in the final act. But all the performers, including Sanders as Barry Dingle, effectively play important roles in creating the environments, moods, scenes, and pacing necessary to effectively usher a random group of people through the maze of the space and the story.
