To further this effect, the fragmented experience of wandering in and out of scenes that you vaguely recognize but struggle to place is dreamlike. To see the scene reset was a singularly haunting experience this repetition along with the silent actors, the deary nostalgia of the McKittrick hotel, and the swelling Bernard Herrmann score, all suggested to me that what we were seeing wasn’t something that was really happening before us, but a memory, a pantomime of the past, ghosts endlessly retracing their steps in limbo. Eventually, she began to repeat her actions-as if she were on a video loop. Finding my footing in a narrative arch that I knew, I decided to follow her to see how Punchdrunk interpreted her story. Several times, the actors draw you into a group scene, and again offer you many choices to make and directions to go.Įventually I stumbled on a scene that approximated Act II, scene ii of Macbeth and could easily identify Lady Macbeth as a character. When the scene ends, you may choose to follow one of the other characters to another narrative moment. Eventually, you’ll stumble across a scene being silently (but muscularly) acted out, at times overtly erotic and violent, at times quiet and sad, always fascinating.

You may wander from room to room, exploring the décor, searching for clues, and soaking in the brooding atmosphere. An elevator transports you to the floors of the McKittrick Hotel, and once you step out of it, what part of the show you experience is entirely up to you. You are instructed to wear a Venetian-style carnival mask (à la Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut), to not touch the actors, and to remain silent for the duration of the experience. After a drink or two, your card is called. To say the least, it was an atypical night at the theater, more akin to wandering through a haunted house than watching a Broadway show-and it was absolutely riveting.Īt the door, you are given a playing card and asked to wait in a speakeasy-inspired lounge. Several weeks ago, my partner Jeff and I went to NYC to see the Punchdrunk Theater Company’s production of Sleep No More, a site-specific, immersive theatrical experience, housed in three abandoned warehouses on West 27th Street, based loosely on Macbeth and set in a creepy 1930s hotel.

Sleep no more video