By Taylor Adams, News Staff
To most college students, and indeed most of the general population, theater is largely pretty boring. The American Repertory Theater’s (ART) ‘Sleep No More’ is not. Stumbling masked through the dark hallways of an abandoned school in the midst of a hybrid Shakespearean-Hitchcockian nightmare is not boring. Being grabbed by the hand, whisked from scene to scene by the actors is not boring. Traditional, ‘boring’ theater this is not.
‘Sleep No More,’ a production of British company Punchdrunk in association with ART, is touted as a Hitchcock-infused staging of Shakespeare’s dark and supposedly instantly recognizable ‘Macbeth.’ I say ‘supposedly’ because I did not recognize it at all. This is nothing like stage performances that one is likely to see anywhere else, nor is it hampered by a desire to be original. To a performance like this, originality is so intrinsic to the experience that it is inevitable when the production is put together with such astounding skill and attention to detail that has been achieved here.
The world of ‘Sleep No More,’ which is laid out throughout Brookline’s Old Lincoln School, has been painstakingly crafted to maintain the illusion of an airtight narrative world. It’s like being immersed in a film, or perhaps more accurately, a dream. Both terms are appropriate. A film because the loose plot is that of Macbeth and Hitchcock’s 1940 ‘Rebecca’ intertwined, with characters from each roaming the halls and interacting with one another. A dream because that’s the most accurate way to describe the twisted theatrical offspring of these works, the feeling it instills, and a kind of justification for their union.
The copulation of these ideas has resulted in something quite visceral. The performances are mostly wordless, yet are anything but mute. The acting is intensely physical, the ‘set’ becoming all the more real as the players perform acrobatic feats all over the environment. Indeed, there are few boundaries here. One can walk right up to the set and examine it. Poems, notes, photographs, books; an immense amount of detail is available to explore. Viewers get out of this setting what they put into it.
The characters and action don’t necessarily have to be followed. Doing so would actually be quite difficult. It is better to wander the halls, assembling the story from the snippets one sees. There’s a constant and increasing feeling of dread. A scream or shout might erupt from the hall. An intense tryst or melee might be stumbled upon. Though Hitchcock is the cinematic influence cited, it would be understandable to feel as if one had stumbled into a far more disquieting David Lynch film.
A truly unsettling score of film-like aural suspense material is pumped throughout the building, rising to a crescendo in certain rooms when the action finds its way there. This is punctuated by some truly ingeniously-placed retro songs (the time period of the setting and dress is decidedly more of early Hitchcock than anything Shakespearean).
A deranged male character’s flawless lip-sync of jazz singer Peggy Lee’s existential lounge-tune ‘Is That All There Is’ was one moment that left me feeling floored. And then, as if it were nothing, a beautiful woman took me by the hand and led me in a dance. I was not the only one who was pulled into the action. In fact, being grabbed, beckoned to, or otherwise invited into the performance is quite common. It can be difficult to tell exactly who these characters are at times, but the effect is no less pronounced:’ There are no safe spaces in ‘Sleep No More.’
It’s an intensity that might not be for everyone. Besides the unpredictable audience participation, there are some fairly disturbing and erotic scenes as the story transitions from a dream to a nightmare, its most obvious arc. In one scene ‘- well, if you’ve ever wondered approximately what it would be like to be Tom Cruise’s masked character as he awkwardly navigated the orgy scene of ‘Eyes Wide Shut,’ wonder no more.
Speaking of voyeurism, the masks attendees wear as they wander freely through the performance create a pronounced and sometimes comforting feeling of anonymity. Yet, there is always the possibility that the roles of voyeur and participant could be juxtaposed at any moment. The way the performance manipulates the viewer psychologically is unlike anything else I have experienced.
‘Sleep No More’ is something truly unique. I’m still not sure exactly how Punchdrunk and ART have pulled it off, it must be a logistical nightmare to put on such a tightly choreographed performance around an unfettered audience. But, I’m really glad they did. In fact, I plan to return to the dark halls of the Old Lincoln School at least once more. It will be another dream, with sights unseen and a whole new story to be constructed.
‘Sleep No More’ is at the Old Lincoln School, 194 Boylston St. in Brookline, until Jan. 3. Tickets cost $25.
