Pharmakon comes onstage, brought to us in the person of Margaret Chardiet, an elegant, amiable blonde in a chic black number. Deceptive looks. The dim red lighting would be more presaging.

As soon as the performance commences, we find ourselves underground, in a post-apocalyptic place, fraught with tension.

Eerie sounds swoosh overhead and permeate through the roof; saturate the air, weigh it down.

With each roar, the ground trembles, and so do we. We get to feel the thrill of listening to The War of the Worlds… except we are experiencing it first-hand.

To this unsettling brew Margaret adds her unsettling screams… and soon performs an artistic gesture electrifying enough to make up for the comeback to reality it provokes.

Margaret, still giving out sporadic screams, steps downstage and wades into the pit, with her wake a gap in the audience.

Suddenly, she’s not that performer on stage, so close, yet so far away.

She’s one of us, could have been any one of us. Could have been me.

She’s just a random person in the audience expressing herself effusively, with everyone else being attentive, receptive, listening.

Seen differently, it might be the case, rather, that she is striving to express herself, in vain, among a crowd of silent, impassive, indifferent onlookers. Don’t you see? She now glares at some attendees, directs her screams at them, desperately trying to communicate and connect using that limited vocabulary of hers.

As she steps back onstage, we perceive her totally differently.

The show goes on for a few minutes.

Suddenly, a final whoosh brings us back to the surface. We open our eyes, knowing it’s all over. Without fail, the lighting goes back to normal, thereby marking the end of her act.

Silence.

Then applause, cheering.

Margaret leaves the stage, without a word, without so much as acknowledging the audience — as if the result of a deliberate decision, not wanting to cultivate her ego, but only to present a work of art for what it was, not who she was. Directing the attention onto the work itself rather than its creator.

Mission accomplished… although at this point it’s hard to remain impervious to her genius.

Here is a video if you want to have an idea of what it looked like; keep in mind that it by no means does the audio justice: http://youtu.be/5oF2PuQ3l98

You can also read my thoughts on the time leading up to the concert and a bit more on Swans over here.