Doyle, these activities are executed with tense balletic virtuosity by neurotic, anguished and gymnastic creatures, who climb the walls (I mean literally) in moments of high stress. (The Macbeth mansion has many bathtubs.) Choreographed by Ms. These jaded figures can be found in bedrooms, bathrooms, ballrooms, hospital rooms and nurseries getting dressed and undressed, doing the foxtrot, making every kind of love, killing one another and washing off blood. (Because the roles are mostly double-cast, I am not mentioning individual performers, but they are all lissome enough to make the audience look slow and dumpy.) Dressed in drop-dead, Deco-era evening clothes, scanty lingerie or nothing at all, these characters include the Macbeths (of course), Macduff and his wife (who is conspicuously pregnant), Duncan (the king) and various witches and hotel employees. The idea is once you’re let loose on one of the floors of the hotel, you pick out a single character and pursue him or her (though you can switch any time you want), as the performer runs, dances and vaults all over the place. (Just don’t touch them, though they may well reach out and touch you.) But you are encouraged to poke around in corners and trunks and bookcases, and allowed to get as close as (in)decency permits to the lithe-bodied denizens of this chic spook house. You are also asked not to utter a word during the two and a half hours you are given to follow the characters of your choice from room to room. You see, everyone who attends “Sleep No More” is required to wear (and keep on) a Venetian carnival-style mask. That’s you and me, my fellow theatergoers. These have less to do with the comely dancers who act out the doomed paths of Macbeth and company than with those clumsy, anonymous lugs in white face masks who keep elbowing one another out of the way to get a better view of the sex and violence. Barrett, Livi Vaughan and Beatrice Minns), is not without thought-churning aperçus. (For those, you would be better off checking out the current Cheek by Jowl or Theater for a New Audience productions of “Macbeth,” in which the emphasis is on interior worlds instead of the World of Interiors.)īut this largely wordless production, directed by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle (and designed by Mr. Though the title of “Sleep No More” and much of its shadow of a plot do come from the compact tragedy that is a favorite of high school English classes, this is not the place to look for insights into Shakespeare. You’ll notice that so far I have not mentioned the name of the writer who immortalized Macbeth. The creative team here has taken on the duties of messing with your head, which they do just as thoroughly as any artificial stimulant. But they should know that sentimentally partaking of any mood-altering substances is inadvisable.Īn unimpaired sense of balance and depth perception is crucial to attending “Sleep No More,” which leads its audience on a merry, macabre chase up and down stairs, and through minimally illuminated, furniture-cluttered rooms and corridors. New Yorkers with fond memories of nights out in the era of theme-park clubs like Area and MK have the chance to relive their salad days with this production (if they can score tickets). Punchdrunk, a British site-specific theater company, has taken over three abandoned warehouses on West 27th Street to enact the sorry sights of the murderous Macbeths’ career in a movable orgy titled “Sleep No More.” And the resulting adventure in décor - a 1930s pleasure palace called the McKittrick - suggests what might have happened had Stanley Kubrick (of “Eyes Wide Shut” and “The Shining”) been asked to design the Haunted Mansion at Disney World, with that little old box maker Joseph Cornell as a consultant. Don’t be surprised if it shows up soon on the cover of Architectural Digest, bloodstains and all. The Thane of Cawdor and his wife have moved into a deserted hotel in the hinterlands of the West 20s, and my dear, what they’ve done with the place. Those pushy Macbeths may be backstabbing social climbers, but you must admit that their new digs are to die for.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |