why #sleepnomore is immersive not interactive; inventive with space, not performance:
Sleep No More was a curiosity worth checking out, and while it entertained me for a couple hours it left me feeling very traditional by the time I was back out on the street.
I had heard this English theater group had built out a few warehouses on the west end of 27th street and turned them into a 100 room theater space where a loose version of Macbeth is performed throughout the rooms as you wander through, in a mask. I mean, at the very least, it sounded like the coolest haunted house ever and that was enough to get me in the door.
Before you even encounter any performers, you are lead through a winding dark tunnel to get the depravation right. Cool. You enter into a darkly golden and haunt-hued labyrinth of a turn of the century hotel. The music seemed intended to create that blue jazz-age American ennui but kept me bouncing as an endless stream of Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington was piped into the dank, faded hallways of a fake hotel. It felt like being on a stage. But a stage where you were free to walk around, open guest books, look behind photo frames, pick up a hair brush or sit on a couch. The experience was real but the sensation was like walking through a movie (set) and touching every prop looking for the false back or the lorem ipsum pages of a dusty book. It actually made me more aware of my own presence in the space than of the story that was trying to be told.
The mute, group-solitude of the audience as we ambled through the space was interrupted by an encounter with a performer. She grabbed someone from the audience and took them through a door. Startling, it does what it's designed to do... get the audience to expect the unexpected. But for me that was it. The unexpected never came again.
I was amazed at how well a NY audience minded their manners. A little like the way I am often surprised a yellow line of paint keeps big, metal cars from smashing into each other, there was something about our shared psychology that created a stage, an insurmountable wall of separation between the performers and us - the masked and silent audience. Standing in the room while two actors wordlessly, dance and cue each other into a scripted run of sexual, violent, sad and regretful poses I knew had seen all this before. And yes, I may have actually been on the stage with them, but as for our theatrical distance? This mimed version of Macbeth may as well have been performed at the Globe.
And it left me wondering... what if the performers were as easily opened as the guest book in the 'lobby'? What if the play of bodies in the room included mine, not by mere presence but engagement? One scene seemed hopeful. It was a bathroom with a writhing actor, naked and wet on the floor, apparently trying to overcome the effects of his regicidal behavior. The actor had to motion in his agony to an audience member to get him the towel on the wall. About four of us stood in the doorway and a woman reached out and handed the man the towel. Like a Sistine Adam reaching out to the one who gives him life, the actor took the towel from the audience and began to dry himself. And then I realized this moment of interaction was not going to change the outcome of this play. We were scenery. Living set decoration. The actor would end up dry and at his mark in the next room with or without our help. And it made me feel a little sad and useless when we were so close to making a difference.
To its own credit, Sleep No More bills itself as an immersive not an interactive experience. And that's true. But allowing the audience to mingle amongst the props just barely brings us up from the seats where, essentially, we become props ourselves. The spaces and opportunities for real-time interaction with performers are only going to grow. And maybe a converted warehouse is not where this real-time, interactive entertainment will happen. We may need a digital distance to overcome our psychological audience wall. The next successful live interactive performance may well take place on platforms like chatroulette, supyo or even more likely, youtube.
