Sleep No More has been on my to-do list for almost a decade. There are few older items like going to the Statue of Liberty or heading up the Empire State building. After a conversation over Christmas on what may or may not be an account of sexual assault at the show, I finally remembered to check it out during my trip back to NYC. Usually, I would probably sneer at the thought of immersive theater, but I liked it more than I thought I would. I thought it was pretty good even.
The show is like a mix of watching clips of a movie, going through a haunted house, searching an escape room, and trying to piece everything together. The show doesn't spoon feed the audience a plot or character development. Characters go about scenes in a loop and the audience is allowed to roam about them. In some cases, the audience must find clues through props. There is nothing stopping the audience from examining a prop, like a book or piece of paper, immediately after the actor has interacted with it. As an audience member, I feel I had to be proactive and vested to really enjoy the show. The typical sitting around watching actors on a stage would not suffice.
Minor spoilers to follow. Going in, all I knew was that the show was loosely based on Macbeth. I probably should have refreshed my knowledge of Shakespeare beforehand, but alas, culture is beyond me. I was able to make out the main plot scenes and see the parallels to Macbeth. A cultured individual may be more capable of a better analysis. My own is superficial at best.
I took the portrayal of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth very literally or as literal as possible given the plot was mostly told through interpretive dance and body movement. The entire production had very little dialog. I think the only things that came out of an actor's mouth was a scream or a grunt. I don't recall any words spoken. Again, props are important and may contain written correspondences between characters. Given only the physical interaction between characters, I sometimes felt it's crucial to find these documents.
I discovered I missed a bunch of subplots. It's very easy to lose track of a character. At the same time, it's very easy to pivot to another character. In cases where I completely lost track of all characters, I simply went searching for props. I went with a friend, but after we got separated into different groups, I did not see him until after the show. It was pretty fun to discuss scenes after it was all over though. I realized I didn't just miss some plot points; I missed entire characters. My friend had the same experience. Definitely don't plan to spend the entire (or any) time together. During the briefing, the actor stewards say that the show is best experienced alone and I honestly agree.
They allow different windows for entry with no limit for the amount of time spent there. We went for the earliest slot and spent almost the entire time there. I think it went something like:
- 6:50PM-Lined up.
- 7:10PM-Entrance and compulsory coat check.
- 7:15PM-Check-in and entrance to the bar.
- 7:30PM-Entry to the actual show part of the warehouse.
- 10:00PM-Finale and return to the bar.
The Oz's guest ticket would have allowed skipping the entry line, but would only probably have saved about 15 minutes between when they put us in the bar and when we were allowed to enter the rest of the warehouse for the show. They time group entry and Oz's guests get priority. I don't think the extra time would have allowed us to substantially experience enough to justify its added cost. With that in mind, the divide and conquer strategy is probably best.
Unfortunately, a number of people did not get the memo about separating. My biggest gripes with the show come from the behavior of audience members. There were a bunch of people obviously there on date nights. They were holding hands the entire time. I don't mind PDA, but this is incredibly disrespectful for fellow audience members in this type of production. People are trying to walk around and follow characters. I wound up losing track of a character (and never found them again) because I was physically blocked in the stairs by hand-holding. Ask any typical New Yorker and they can tell you how annoying it is trying to walk past a group of people on the sidewalk. Imagine that in a confined space. The stairs and some entryways in the set are designed only wide enough for a single person to go through at a time.
The design of the set also lacks any visual cues to delineate where the action takes place. In one small room, I was constantly dodging actors as they were flung around in dance. In another sequence, I was almost tackled by one of the actors. Luckily, one of the rooms had water stains on the floor to show where one was likely to potentially get wet. I feel like the set design could have used more thought in guiding the audience.
I did think of entry and exit points of certain parts of the set and that did help me position myself strategically for catching some scenes. Some audience members didn't think too critically about their positioning and this led them scrambling to catch good view points of the action. I suffered a fair bit of elbowing (again, sometimes due to couples insisting on walking side by side). The worst offense was when a woman walked closer to the action only to retreat and stomp on my foot when she was startled.
Despite the minor gripes, overall, the production was quite enjoyable. I think we lucked out going on a Monday night in the winter after New Years, probably when tourism dips the most in NYC. I believe we used our time efficiently and the overcrowding wasn't as bad as some reviews made it out to be. I came out feeling like I need to go back again in order to discover more of the plot and catch things I missed. Some reviewers believe they are owed satisfaction after paying for the ticket, but I think the lack of satisfaction may just be one of this show's selling points. The responsibility is on the audience to make the most of the experience.