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Backstory[]

Heacte

Careena Melia as Hecate in Sleep No More

Goddess of witchcraft. Just like the same name character in Macbeth, she is the behind-the-scene manipulator of most of the bloody tragedies in the whole show.

Originated and created by Careena Melia.

In many stories from Greek mythology, Hecate's origin is as the character Iphigenia, best known as the daughter of Agamemnon who was sacrificed so that the Greek fleet could sail from Mycenae to fight in the Trojan War; after her sacrifice, Iphigenia was transformed into Hecate by the goddess Artemis. This story was first depicted in a Punchdrunk context at the McKittrick's May Fair 2015, performed by the Paisley Players. It was depicted in more detail in Punchdrunk's 2022-2023 show The Burnt City, with Iphigenia's transformation into Hecate and collecting tears serving as a major plot point.

Notable Feature[]

She wears a floor-length red gown, decorated with black feather. She stays for almost the entire performance at the Gallow Green town.

Plotline[]

Hecate appears for the first time to summon the witches for the first rave. She then stays to manipulate the rave, and watches Sexy Witch's solo dance afterwards. She proceed to harvest Agnes' tear at the Rep Bar, and feed it to Speakeasy Bartender waiting outside. 

Hecate struts down High Street, greeted by a kneeling Speakeasy, and then returns to the Replica Bar.  

She then eats a meal of raw liver. During the meal she will cough up a ring and give it to someone before beginning a lip syc of "Is That All There Is?" which takes place somewhat simultaneously with Boy Witch's rendition 2 floors below.

Afterwards she will come back to the Rep Bar to set things up. At some point, Bartender enters replica bar doing some cleaning up, then interrupted by Hecate. She then appears to summon the witches and watches the rave again.

One on One[]

Other description:

1 on 1 in her lair: I walked into the bar when Hectate darted towards me locked eyes, and placed a firm hand on my shoulder and marched me backwards up against the wall, she looked at me, and said in my ear in nothing more than a hush whisper " I have been waiting all night for you, wait here, I will return" and with that she disappeared into a locked room. With that, the door swung open, she snatched my hand in hers and pulled my silently into her room. She looked at me, sighed, and removed my mask, handed me a tissue, and smoothed my hair, and she pity smiled, (the sense of vulnerability is a little overwhelming) she sought a vile of tears, opened the bottle, tipped my head back, and poured the tears into my mouth. I could taste the salt as it laced my tongue. she started to tell me a story, the start of the story is cloudy and I don't remember it well, however, as the story grew dark, so did the room, the faint dim light that was once brighter, was fading, and she was walking me backwards, through the a pair of heavy curtains into a now pitch black chamber of her room, she was telling me about a boy, a boy who got lost in the woods, as she said this, she pinned me against prickly wall, it was covered in branches, and leaves, all intertwinned, she forced my hands into it, the volume of her voice was raising with the screams and cries of a little boy, it was so dark, and loud as STILL building, and then all of a sudden, EVERYTHING stopped. all i could feel was her chest raising with her breath, and the warmth of her body against mine, i could start to make out her outline and the whites of her eyes, and she looked at me dead in the eye, she whispered. in a staccato manner "find. my. ring. I. know. you. know. where. it. is" with that, she took my hand and whipped my whole body away from the wooded wall, and forcefully put my mask on face and pushed me through a now open door into another room and slammed the door shut behind me.

Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, sits in the corner of the dilapidated bar and sometimes asks an audience member to deliver a message – if they pass the test, they are taken into a hidden room where they are given a cup of tea and told a story about a boat, before a paper boat is put in their tea which turns it blood-red and it starts to rain. I’ve even heard unconfirmed rumours that collecting a set of specific objects will grant you access to a series of hidden rooms which finishes up with you being allowed to become a character for the rest of the evening.

Actually finding her ring: When I showed her the ring, she gasped, and got a crazed look in her eyes before she transformed into a frail old womenand fell against me, as if she was too weak to walk.  She had me help her back to her lair, took me inside, and delivered a 1-1 that only a handful of people have experienced.  I won’t talk about the details. The very cool part is that it seemed to end with the strong implication that there was some new mystery that would reveal itself to me in future visits.  While that did happened to a certain extent– cryptic personal notes that she gave me in subsequent visits, clearly intended to string me along.

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