Nightmares and Roller
Coasters: Sleep No More
How It’s New York:
Long lines, event of the season,
the feeling of being in, for getting in.
How It’s Irish:
So NYC.
The Scottish play, on which this is
loosely based, or rather maybe what inspired this
installation-experience-theatrical-thing, is
Shakespeare at his most Celtic (its spare, terriblethings-just -happen structure is just like a Scottish
murder ballad.
Think about it.)
By now, you’d have to have no interest in New York
theatre at all not to know that Sleep No More, from
the UK’s Punchdrunk theatre, in a 100-room
installation in Chelsea, is one of the hottest tickets
going.
It’s theatre as happening as much as it is
theatre as theatre.
To say it could give you
nightmares only subverts the reality that the
experience of this production is just like a
nightmare; detailed, hard to convey in words, elusive,
weirdly logical somehow.
Even when you don’t enjoy
it, you
Nicholas Bruder
relish the experience.
and Sophie Bortolussi (Yaniv
Schulman)
UPDATE: THIS SHOW IS STILL
RUNNING.
It’s directed by Felix Barrett (who also designs) and
Maxine Doyle (who also choreographs), with addition
design from Livi Vaughan and Beatrice Minns.
On line to get in to the venue on 27th and 10th (way,
way West), I heard one girl reading the plot of
Macbeth to another girl from her iphone.
But If you
don’t know your Macduff from your Banquo, don’t worry
about it.
You’ll get far enough just dimly
remembering that Macbeth and his Lady killed the
visiting king, so he could be the new Thane, and it
all goes wrong in the end.
And there are witches.
It all reminded me of the Tower of Terror at
Disneyworld.
I mean that as a compliment.
does detail like the Disney theme parks.
Nobody
The Tower of
Terror’s conceit is that you’re in an old hotel (1939,
so same period too), and as you snake around in line
to get on the roller coaster in the dark (to have the
experience of getting on an elevator that breaks) you
go through an old library, see a guestbook, and so
on.
Sleep No More is a lot like that on steroids.
When it works, it’s exhilarating.
But like a roller
coaster it has some duller patches, and it’s not for
the physically weak.
You could get knocked down by
other audience members rushing to follow a performer.
You could trip.
You could get museum (installation)
fatigue.
I admired it very much but think I’d have
liked it
more without the hordes of other audience
members all around me (Theatre Etiquette:
courting
couples may not hold hands and cuddle in lines and in
narrow passageways).
You have your choice of wandering around on your own,
or following a performer to get into the story.
doing some combination of both.
Or
Like a really great
museum exhibit, there’s too much to see in one
viewing.
When I read other reviews I see things I
missed (Lady Macbeth’s thank you note to the king, in
a drawer!
A two-way mirror!).
It’s its own
narrative.
Sleep No More is also set at an old hotel, the
McKittrick.
Vertigo
It takes its name from Hitchcock’s
movie
and there are film noir elements everywhere
(including the ominous music by Sound Designer Stephen
Dobbie, interspersed with period pop songs).
roller coaster begins even in line.
The
You can arrive up
to an hour before your performance time, and it’s not
a bad idea, as there’s a lovely bar upstairs serving
period (20s-30s) cocktails and a band.
Keep some
money in your pockets, ladies, because you are asked
to check your bags on entry.
already is disorienting.
For a critic, this
I could not take notes!
It
also was freeing.
Careena Melia, Ching-I Chang, audience members
(Alick Crossley)
Your ticket is a playing card, the number of which
determines when you get into the elevator that ushers
you into the experience.
The elevator man lets only a
few people out at a time, underscoring that you won’t
really start at the beginning.
Before you enter the
experience, you’re given a creepy white half mask to
wear and warned strictly not to speak.
You wander around the dark, cool hallways into room
after room laid out with convincing and amazing
detail.
Here is a child’s bedroom (no doubt the
Macduff murdered chicks), with dolls and
nightclothes.
Here is Birnam Wood, a kind of maze.
In a large ballroom, witches dance around a
pentagram.
There’s a hotel lobby, with keys, chairs,
telephone booths– in which a thrilling, athletic dance
duel took place (again, see the rule of dreams:
hard
to describe).
Dialogue, even when the performers (you can tell they
are performers because they don’t wear masks.
There
are also some hotel guards in black half masks who
occasionally steer you around, and I suppose could be
called on if you faint) are right on top of you, is
almost imperceptible.
Hovering close to a scene with Lady Macbeth (I think
it was her, she was in an evening gown and
muttering
and looked upset, if so it was Sophie Bortolussi), I
thought, “This must be what it is like to be dead.
in someone’s dream.
they see me.
Or
I can see, but I am not sure if
I can’t interfere, even when I want to.
I feel disconnected from it all.”
That’s a cool
experience to have.
Tori Sparks (center), audience members (Alick
Crossley)
As in a dream, I often found myself back again to a
particular place:
large bathtub.
in this case,
the room with the
I saw Lady Macbeth and hubby (two
people credited, so could have been Erick Jackson
Bradley or Nicholas Bruder) maul each other
beautifully, poetically, gracefully.
The dance is
highlighted more than the dialogue, and it’s all
athletic, breathtaking (kudos to Maxine Doyle).
Unforgettable images included an office of desks, with
hotel stationery, and a line from the play on it (I
think this was it, but see above about not taking
notes:
“A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d:
II.iv).
from
Hotel guests playing backgammon in the lobby
(actually I think they may have been volunteers
wearing hotel guest masks, but it was an arresting
image).
A truly terrifying witches’ sabbat under
strobe lights where a man in a bull’s head seemed to
come at me, and a baby is covered in blood (I think
this might have been the vision sequence in IV.i).
So
I could see, a black-masked guard pushed me in front.
Thank you, black masked guard.
An apothecary filled
with jar after jar of weird herbal remedies.
A room
with many books in which one line was cut out at odd
angles, and pages put up on the wall.
Somehow everyone is ushered into the great ballroom at
the end for the banquet scene.
I was right up close
and couldn’t see all that well, but it was slow,
starkly lit, and there’s a noose.
And right after it
ends, you’re ushered back into the happy speakeasy
bar, where a combo is doing period songs and you can
order more drinks (if you took money in.
It’s key).
I sat for a long time waiting for the next group of
people but finally gave up and left; you get to keep
the mask.
I got a program on the way out and it shows that many
of the performers are playing duel roles, suggesting
there’s a secondary plot set in the 20s or 30s that I
couldn’t access:
Witch/Nurse Shaw.”
Ching-I Chang played “Sexy
Kelly Barnik played “Bald
Witch/Catherine Campbell.”
But he inaccessibility
isn’t a fault so much as a reassurance that there’s
more going on than meets the eye (kind of like the
private imagery some auteur filmmakers use again and
again, like the Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky
and his horses).
Yeah, I’d get on line for this ride again.
And
there’s more to explore in this nightmare.
Punchdrunk, Presented by Emursive, in association with
rebecca gold productions and Douglas G. Smith.
McKittrick Hotel, 530 W. 27th St., NYC, NY.
Tickets here.
At The
10001.
There are five arrival times M-F, 7,
7:15, 7:30, 7:45 and 8; plus Fri and Sat at 11, 11:15,
11:130, 11:45 and 11:59.
After admission, patrons embark
upon an individual journey and may
stay inside the performance for as
long as they wish until it ends at
10:00PM (2:00 AM at Friday &
Saturday late night performances)
after which they are welcome to
stay on at the bar.