At one point during "Sleep No More," alone in the shadowy darkness of the men's room, I broke the no-cellphones/no-photography rule and took a picture of my masked self in the mirror. The little screen displayed a ghostly image that I carefully saved, thinking I'd use it here. And just now, when I went to find it, it was gone from my phone. No doubt I simply bungled the save; the prompts were hard to see from inside the mask, in the dark. But this loss of self seems a perfect metaphor for the spooky, unsettling atmosphere created by the Punchdrunk troupe and the American Repertory Theatre for this production inside the corridors and classrooms of the vacant Old Lincoln School in Brookline.
When my wife and I finally doffed our masks and stepped outside after two hours (the experience can go on for three), we both sort of giggled with relief. It was warm in the building, hot and uncomfortable inside the white plastic masks. But I think we were just relieved to be released from the spell that this intensely strange version of "Macbeth" casts, the feeling of dislocation and foreboding, of confusion and voyeuristic guilt. Music comes and goes and seems to follow you around the building, and always there is an ominous electronic hum. I think we were relieved to be away from that, too, and in the car we discussed our occasional frustration with the self-guided production. We went to bed late, and in the morning, it turned out we had both dreamed ourselves back in those rooms and hallways. Neither one of us could remember the details of our dreams, but I am sure that I heard that ominous electronic hum all night long...
The overall experience is what's most compelling about "Sleep No More," which Punchdrunk debuted in England a few years ago. Arriving on foot, you are directed down an alley to an obscure back entrance of the tall, darkened brick school off Route 9. Soon you're ushered into a cabaret space with a velvety red curtain that made me think of David Lynch and a leafy arch that brought to mind pagan rituals. We were issued white, pointy-chinned masks - a little bit Venice carnival, a little bit "Saw" - and told to remain silent. Then our small group was loaded into an up elevator.
After one floor, the elevator stopped and the door opened. Our guide directed a woman to step out into the pitch-dark corridor...then closed the door behind her, with her date still in the elevator, and started us up again. Okayyy. Eventually we were all off-loaded on different floors, left to our own devices to wander where we would, encountering the "scenes" out of order if at all.
The whole school has been transformed into a fantastically detailed set for Punchdrunk's nearly wordless interpretation of "Macbeth." Each room is like a twisted art installation, some turned into subtly creepy bedchambers and offices, others papered with bits of manila envelopes or full of shelved taxidermy or strange vegetation. The school's old lockers and frosted glass help create something of an Overlook Hotel feeling, a ghostly 1920s or '30s hangover. One room held a double row of old bathtubs, evoking the washroom at an orphanage or asylum, all half-full of water. In one tub a small snake wriggled to prove itself real.
After 20 minutes of wandering these unpeopled tableaux, finally we saw a character hurrying past and latched on as friends had told us to do, following him to a room where, well, something was happening. The action played out in performance art and dance, with mostly not a word spoken. We followed another character out of there, chasing him as he receded into the darkness down the corridor...
This is the ART's "Shakespeare Exploded" season, of course, and eventually we encountered recognizable puzzle pieces of "Macbeth." In the old school's auditorium, Banquo's bloody ghost appeared at the banquet on the stage. Birham Wood came to Dunsinane as characters pushed fir trees around on the wide floor amid pine scent and darkness and fog. In her bedroom, Lady MacBeth literally climbed the walls. But "Sleep No More" is hardly linear, even if you know where to go when. Liberties are taken.
I don't remember Shakespeare's play featuring a strobe-lit orgy of sorts where a naked man
wearing a ram's head lurches around to deafening music holding a bloody
infant. "Sleep No More" does, and we masked voyeurs stood in a circle looking on. My overloaded brain barely had bandwidth to wonder: Is the infant Macduff's son, not of woman born (but by Caesarian)?
Or am I thinking too literally?
Creators Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle say in their notes that they've infused the experience with the "plunge into the unknown" of Hitchcock's films - there's some "Rebecca" here, and the score nods to Bernard Herrman - but that seems to me a misunderstanding of the control-freak director. Hitch gets his jollies pushing you toward something that is terrifying precisely because you can imagine what is coming. "Sleep No More" seems much closer to David Lynch territory and to the Stanley Kubrick of "The Shining" and "Eyes Wide Shut," where the predictable and ordinary give way to nightmare, and you're not sure precisely why you're quite so scared.
The intimacy with the performers is sometimes hilarious, sometimes shocking. Lady Macduff nearly decked us with a roundhouse kick at one point. As we followed a fleeing beauty through a maze, someone blew hard in my ear, twice. Turns out it was her dandyish pursuer, trying to get past. As my wife said later, "This is not the same old thing from (another big local theater company that I won't gratuitously insult here)."
I won't say that I am as enraptured as some of the fans retweeted by @americanrep, who vow to return until they've seen it all. We never saw the witches at their cauldron, if there was one.
But again, we both dreamed of it afterward - this "Macbeth" has murdered sleep indeed.
Earlier, we ate dinner at La Morra down the street and struck up a conversation with an older couple at the next table who were also on the way to the performance. They were, to say the least, skeptical about this avant garde approach to the Bard. Despite the masks and the darkness, we recognized them later, inside "Sleep No More." The wife was being pulled into the maze by that fleeing beauty, who whispered to her intimately, lips against her ear. The electronic hum ground on. The husband hurried after them. I bet they dreamed about it later, too.
"Sleep No More" continues through Jan. 3. It is not very Christmassy, however.
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