REVIEW: ‘Sleep No More’ stays awake off-Broadway
Photo: Nicholas Bruder stars as Macbeth and Sophie Bortolussi as Lady Macbeth in Sleep No More. Photo courtesy of © Yaniv Schulman / Provided by O&M DKC with permission.
NEW YORK — Sleep No More, the immersive theatrical production from the UK-based Punchdrunk company, has been invigorating audiences for several years at the McKittrick Hotel in Chelsea. During a recent visit to these dark, foreboding environs, it was clear that the experience had not lost any of its luster in the intervening years. Sleep No More, presented by Emersive, is still as brilliant and scary and enthralling as ever.
Full details of experiencing Sleep No More will be kept to a minimum, so as not to spoil the production for first-timers. However, readers beware, mild spoilers ahead.
Patrons begin the evening with a given time slot to check in at the McKittrick, a string of buildings on a quiet New York City street that has been made into a unique theatrical space. After stepping through the compulsory coat check and receiving a playing card as a ticket, theatergoers ascend the stairs and make their way through an eerie maze until they time travel to the atmospheric Manderley Bar, an intimate space usually populated by a jazzy singer, plenty of bubbly and nervous Sleep No More virgins.
The formal play begins after patrons don masks that are reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. They take an elevator up to four levels of intricately designed sets, all of which are ready for the exploring. From here on out, it’s a choose-one’s-own-adventure evening that lasts approximately three hours.
Audience members file around these dark corridors spying on actors in a variety of settings, everything from a bedroom to a graveyard to an operating room to a hospital to an outdoor space that looks like a bombed-out garden. The actors utter few words; instead they enact a variety of scenes from William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Bookending the performance piece are two banquet scenes that provided some narrative context.
The joys of Sleep No More are dependent on the enterprise of individual theatergoers. One can simply explore the rooms and let the actors entertain the crowds in other spaces; this will surely lead to an intimate, lonesome, transfixing experience. Or, one can follow an actor throughout the evening, seeing how the character’s story evolves and their fate decided. Sometimes their tale turns bloody, other times quite romantic, most often quite sad.
After say an hour of following an actor or a particular scene, it’s recommended that audience members change course because some of the action repeats itself. During one hour, this reporter was engaged by a scene involving Lady Macbeth. At one point, she was visited by her husband, and they had a physical dance and romantic relationship on a series of cushions surrounding a bedroom and bath.
Eventually Macbeth left the room for an extended period of time, only to return with evidence of a committed crime. The second time this happened, rather than staying with Lady Macbeth, this reviewer went with the husband to see why his hands turned bloody while he was away.
The intricacy of the sets is mind-blowing, and one can become lost in a single room for 15-20 minutes, simply by reading the detailed letters and books on forgotten office desks and shelves. Sometimes, if lucky, one can be treated to a scene with few other theatergoers nearby, as this reporter was when an actor portraying a nurse performed a dance routine on an operating table. Because of the ebb and flow of the performance, the rest of the patrons were preoccupied elsewhere, so the dance became a performance for one.
Heightening the action is a noirish soundtrack that will remind theatergoers of Alfred Hitchcock’s oeuvre, according to press notes. The choreography is not standard choreography (no Bob Fosse or Jerome Robbins here). These stylized movements are physically demanding, rough around the edges and emotive; they are gestures and embraces that straddle the line between love and lust, pain and anguish. Kudos to director and choreographer Maxine Doyle for such originality and thoughtfulness, especially with how the actors use all available spaces, including the ceiling.
There are many more secrets to enjoying Sleep No More, but it’s best when audience members head throughout the McKittrick with few preconceptions or expectations. Although some secrets that should remain secrets have been revealed on online forums, it’s only fair to let every first-time visitor be a true first-time visitor.
Put simply, there’s nothing quite like Sleep No More, and repeat experiences are still rewarded with so many payoffs. With four floors of theatrical space, there’s always something new just around the next darkened corner.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Sleep No More, presented by Emersive and produced by Punchdrunk, is currently playing the McKittrick Hotel in Chelsea, New York City. Click here for more information and tickets. Rating: 
