A few weeks ago, my friend Trophywife (her choice!) came to visit me. She lives in Massachusetts and was in NYC for the weekend with some of her friends for pre-wedding celebrations for the daughter of one of her friends. This is the stage we are at in our lives, too old to be going to our own friends weddings, too young to be going to our kids but getting closer year by year. The girls had a whole bunch of different activities planned and they were kind enough to include me in several events. It was a total blast!
One of the things they wanted to do was to see a Broadway show of some kind. They had a few discussions and someone came up with the idea of seeing Sleep No More, which is based on MacBeth. I hadn't really heard about it before but since I love seeing live performances and I love hanging out with Trophywife and Trophywife's friends, I was game. Trophy and I decided to do some research beforehand to help us get an idea of what we would be seeing. We discovered that the entire performance is done silently (although that is not entirely accurate) and that the audience sort of wanders through this warehouse that has been converted into a hotel which acts as the stage where all the action takes place. The idea is that as an audience member you walk through the hotel, going into various rooms and see if you can find any action going on. We still weren't sure what it was all about but it sounded intriguing. All of the reviews online mentioned it was incredible and people go back 3 or 4 times to see it all because it is almost impossible to see everything in one visit. Sounded good!
Our group numbered 7, including the mother and grandmother of the bride. We had all worn comfortable shoes - a tip we picked up in our research. When we gave our name to the bouncer at the front, they asked us to wait off to the side and then they brought us into the venue - our group by ourselves, no one else that was waiting in line. At first I was impressed, obviously we were getting some special treatment. They made us check our coats and purses (you aren't allowed to carry anything inside, except of course your credit card to use at the bar). Then the guide gave us each a playing card (the same card, the Ace) and took us to a curtained area, told us to go through the dark hall and eventually we would find the bar. Now when I say this was dark, I mean it was pitch black, could not see your hand unless it was on your face dark. We all held hands, walked along the hallway, feeling the walls, turning this corner, or that corner until we finally found the bar. I wasn't quite sure why they did it this way other than to set the scene a bit, kind of disorient us. When we got to the bar, although we were the first "customers" there were other people in the bar, characters sitting at tables having conversations and waiters/waitresses serving us drinks. We all got a drink and sat at a table waiting to see what would happen next.
A few minutes later, a man instructed all those with an Ace card to go into the next room. We were handed white masks (imagine part Phantom of the Opera and part Mardi Gras) and told us once we put them on, we weren't allowed to speak or whisper or make a sound from that point on. It was then we figured out that we were actually in an elevator decorated like a room (ala Disneyland Haunted Mansion). We felt the elevator descend. Or did it rise? The character in the room was giving instructions but I really don't remember what he said. At one point, he pulled me into the room more. I thought I might have been too close to the elevator door. When it opened, we all turned around. Trophywife walked out and I was following her. The elevator operator quickly grabbed my arm and he pulled me back into the room and the door closed. She was on her own!!! I felt kind of bad. The next time the door opened he left a few more walk out, and apparently did this several times. I am suspecting this was done so not all of the audience was on the same floor at the same time.
We wandered around, room to room to try and figure out exactly what was happening. We wandered into an infirmary hospital type room. There was a nurse making beds. I watched her for a few minutes. Not that interesting. I wandered to another room. Found a forest, sort of. "Trees", branches stuck in the floor and coming down from the ceiling with statues in the middle. I found what looked like a Chinese pharmacy with big bottles of herbs. Another room seemed to be a hotel lobby, with a register and notes. Audience members are allowed and encourage to read and pick up things to a certain extent. So we read the hotel register, we read the notes on the bulletin board. We picked up pieces of paper. We finally found two characters engaged in a strange "battle/dance" in a bedroom with a bathtub. It was a woman and a man and I couldn't tell if they were dancing or fighting. They were moving around the room violently, grunting, looking pretty upset with each other. Jumping on boxes, the bed. Then the male actor left the room. I tried to follow him but got caught up in the group in the stairwell and lost him. Then I found myself in a bar/library room with several men playing cards. Nothing happened there for a while. So I left. I found myself back in the bathroom/bedroom. The man had just walked in and took his clothes off. Yes! Nudity! Now we are talking. The male character got into the tub and then you discovered that his hands were bloody and he was washing off the blood. The female character helped wash him and then he got out of the tub and fell on to the bed. Then he got up put his clothes on and ran out of the room. Yeah, I am not doing that again. So I wandered off to another floor and found a table with a whole bunch of characters, toasting each other. I think there was a ghost walking behind them that only a few characters could see, then all of the characters' motions seemed to be in slow motion. Then they all got up and left again. Crap, more running after characters. I ran after one, who collapsed on a feather bed. It seems quite a bit of this acting includes falling on beds. It is no wonder with all of the running that everyone has to do. I almost plopped down on the bed next to the character.
I could go on and on describing some of the other "scenes" but I am not sure what I saw. As it turns out, each "scene" is acted out 3 times. You have to put all of the scenes together to get the entire play and figure out the order. That didn't happen for me. I spent most of my time in a hot, plastic mask (imagine those Halloween masks from the 60s and 70s), sweating, running, trying to figure it all out. All in all about 2 1/2 hours.
Now I don't want you to think I had a bad time, I didn't and I think I lost weight during the performance - always a plus. But my good time had more to do with the company than the "play" itself. This is another example of modern art that I don't get. Like the art exhibits of fluorescent light tubes we saw at the Tate Modern when we lived in London. I like some modern art but displays that I believe intentionally try to make the viewer feel inadequate or stupid or uneducated are bothersome to me. Only the "cool" get it. The rest of us are out of it. And maybe that is true. I don't regret going, I had a good time with my friends. But really good art in whatever form, should make you want to see it again and again and again even if you don't understand it. I have checked the box on this one and I can't say that I would recommend it to someone. What I don't get is that almost all of the reviews I read about this before I went raved about it. There wasn't one dissenting opinion. I did notice however, that a few weeks after we went some less than enthusiastic reviews went up. But this play has been here for quite some time. I just think sometimes people go along with these reviews because they don't want other people to think they weren't cool enough or smart enough to get it. Just like the villagers did in "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Hans Christian Anderson. If you aren't sure what you just saw, praise it. I guess that is the point.
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