The Second Word from the Story of the Cage by Meet Alice

MEET ALICE The Second Word from the Story of the Cage

Meet Alice in collaboration with Iranian writer and director, Cyrus G Seif brought to Bankside an immersive theatrical performance set in a disused World War Two air raid shelter behind Tate Modern. A story about the selfishness among gender, race and class who go to war with each other for their own ends, it provided the audience with a  personal interactive journey into the unknown.

Visitors to the air raid shelter beneath the picturesque and listed Hopton Garden almhouses were encouraged to be part of the piece by  considering the opposites of daily life whilst being plunged into darkness on a slow, silent trip into an invisible world.

The scripted performance started in the gardens with 6 to 15 actors waiting to take the 30 visitors on a 90-minute adventure that could lead anywhere.

While the story travelled through time  from the past to the present, the traveller was taken through light and dark, both literally and physically, as the play developed.  

To create The Second Word from the Story of the Cage, Cyrus drew on his experiences of his homeland, Iran, and his time as a novelist in Holland.

Meet Alice is no stranger to fans of immersive theatre – they haveve previously had two successful, sell-out runs in London: the first on a canal boat, the second in the Old Vic Tunnels. Meet Alice were also MERGE’s artists-in-residence.