ongoing  - Sun. Feb. 7 

My take on "Sleep No More" has been up on site for a while and, yes, it remains. But recently, my niece playwright Deborah Yarchun visited and saw the show. Her play "FreezeFrame," debuted off-Broadway in 2006 through the Young Playwrights Fest XXIV. She is a past recipient of the Kennedy Center’s VSA Arts’ Playwright Discovery Award and current Literary Assistant at Salvage Vanguard Theater in Austin, TX.) Her critique - in italics - follows mine.

Here were some of the things that came to mind during “Sleep No More”: “Twin Peaks, “Eyes Wide Shut, “Macbeth” … and a highbrow version of one of those Spooky World haunted houses. “Sleep No More” is a two-and-a-half hour play/interactive performance art piece put on by the English company Punchdrunk in conjunction with the A.R.T., and up at the unlikeliest of venues, the Old Lincoln School in Brookline. The school, Brookine’s town hall for a while after its school days ended, certainly looks like a school from the outside, but on the inside, well, it’s totally surreal, an alternate universe. Much of it’s a dimly lit labyrinth, a maze. Three floors of who knows what, maybe a few things that go bump in the night. The corridors lead into numerous offshoot avenues, created for this event and some 43 rooms – a ballroom, a disco, indoor gardens, offices, a hotel lobby, bedrooms, and much more. In these rooms, you, perhaps, will see a witches orgy, a murder or two (there are four throughout the night), some ballroom dancing, some risqué sexual sparring. You may be touched by an actor. Literally. One woman came up to my wife, looked her in the eye, stroked her hair and fondled the diamond she wore around her neck. When I say looked her in the eye, I mean that. My wife, like everyone else in attendance, was given a white plastic mask to wear throughout the night – think “V for Vendetta.” (This separates the actors from the non-actors; it also obscures us from others’ impressions of what they’re taking in.) Another actress took my arm and guided me down a corridor, stopped me at a baby carriage and ushered me out toward the Manderlay Bar, a faux ‘30s bar where two female singers and a three-piece band play classics from a time long gone-by. (This is where we all start the night, too, waiting to be called in small groups to start our tour.) It adds to the other-worldliness of the night, and it’s a place where you can hear lovely music and discuss what went on. Discuss you will. Your senses will be working overtime. Sight, sound, smell, touch – all in play.
It’s a mind-scrambling event and the most striking, powerful, if abstract, piece of theater I’ve seen in some time. Also, the first one where an actor may rush past you in a hallway and you – along with whoever is in your group at the moment – race after him or her. You wonder where the hell this character is going and why and what will happen when you get there. Should you even follow? Maybe, you should divert yourself into one of the smaller rooms off to the side, where you might find an eerie lineup of clawfoot bathtubs with a fake snake in one, or another tiny room, with a foreboding stuffed dog. What the hell are we doing here? Should we stay or should we go now? Is there something we’re missing? Answer: There’s always something you’re missing, so if you’re the type who obsesses about those kind of things, try to leave those obsessions at the door. Me, I almost followed a naked actor into a shower stall. I didn’t know that’s where he was headed, and I only stayed a few seconds before I came to my senses – um, you know embarrassed - but I don’t think what I did was wrong. I don’t think you can do “wrong.” Well, you can raise your mask up a bit, and an actor will delicately tap it down. And, you’re admonished to keep quiet at the onset and not yak loudly. They will kill you if you leave your cell phone on. (Just kidding, but don’t do it. It’s a cell-free world.)
When you’re at “Sleep No More,” you’re an observer, yes, but you’re a participant, too. You make the choices about who or what to follow. Maybe it’s the ominous sound growing louder and louder from some chamber down the hall … where you enter and find panic at the disco. Maybe you follow the murderer who’s just smothered someone. Maybe you’ll stay with the corpse. Maybe you’ll just go on intuition. Heck, if you need a breather, you can sit on a chair in the rooms. You’re also welcome to poke through the drawers. The sets dimly lit, but elaborate in detail.
Now, will understand what you see and how it falls into the context of things? Maybe, maybe not, and, if you don’t, it’s OK. Consider what you see as spooky or sexy vignettes and worry about the connective tissue later. And you won’t see everything. (Scenes are looped twice during the evening, so you may stumble upon something you saw an hour ago.) Your experience will be unlike everyone else’s. Do not walk into this expecting linearity. But there is a banquet, last-supper-like, scene at the end where we all seemed to be drawn. Ten actors at a table, pouring wine and exchanging glances in slo-mo. All leading to well … something rather dramatic accompanied by the sound of fluttering birds and sonic booms.
Directed by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle, “Sleep No More” is drawn from “Macbeth” – you’ll meet Banquo, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Macduff and Lady Macduff - but no one here is speaking lines. Some of the installations, we’re told, are inspired by superstitions found in Shakespeare’s play. The 17 actors find themselves involved in a multitude of scenes, many of which are accompanied by loud, droning, dissonant synthesizer music.

Deborah Yarchun's view:

The stygian atmosphere is set upon entering the abandoned Brookline school, where you’re immediately thrust into a near pitch black winding corridor lit by an occasional votive. After several close encounters with a wall; you land in the 1930s-themed Manderley Bar, where as you wait for the playing card you were handed to be called, you can sip $2 rye and punches.

“Sleep No More” is an interactive theater piece so brimming that in 2 and 1/2 hours it’s impossible to catch every performance moment and all 46 art installations-- all themed around superstitions and pieces of Macbeth. But it’s well worth trying.

I took a more focused dramaturgical approach through strategically following the performers, my playwright mind connecting the scenes that unfolded to Shakespeare’s Macbeth. This wasn’t the worse way to go—because Punchdrunk’s show is both visually brilliant and intellectually stimulating. “Macbeth” is played out physically (nearly entirely wordlessly) and often expressionistically by acrobatic actors who perform feats across bookcases, around swinging pendulum interrogation lights, and through dancehalls, often emphasizing their characters’ inner turmoil as they struggle and are lured by their fate.

Wandering through the creepy milieu, it’s easy to get the sense of being in a sort of Macbeth Shining. Characters long killed meander back into the story, as their scenes are repeated.  This is partially due to the necessary loop of actions called for by immersive theater, a form highly apropos in this case, as it gives a sense of the characters being locked into their course of tragic inevitability.  With multiple iterations of each scene, it also means that if you know the story of Macbeth well, with a little effort, you can make a game of following it— You can see Macbeth and Lady Macbeth conspire and carry out their plan. You can follow Macduff through hallways as he struggles with the murder of his pregnant wife and hell-bent on revenge draws out his attack strategy to bring down Macbeth. You can even watch the trees of Bantam forest advance.

If you look even closer, you may see that Punchdrunk appears to have put their own spin on Macbeth: None of the characters are innocent, though some are certainly guiltier than others. A very pregnant Lady Macduff during a ball scene quaffs two shots of liquor; Banquo is lured away in a hysteria by the witches who present him with the prospect of bearing many kings through handing him a king playing card. King Duncan appears to be seduced into his bed by Lady Macbeth.

It’s hardly a literal interpretation; Punchdrunk plays it to the pith.  Instead of Macbeth seeing the ghost of Banquo, Punchdrunk limns the ghosts of Macbeth’s victims and the witches at a banquet and Macbeth and Lady Macbeth toast them in a prelude to their own demise. Earlier (or later dependent on when you stumble into the scene), you may catch Macbeth’s return to the three witches in an orgiastic and Dionysian ecstasy, complete with a naked dancing man wearing a goat head.

And if you’re not careful—you could end up watching the same scenes twice, but you may not want to let yourself be too visually seduced.  There’s so much more to experience. In the nightly  after party featuring a singing hostess and more cheap  drinks, there was a buzz about 20 claw-foot bathtubs in a room (think “Out damn spot,”) one with an alleged eel or water snake. That would have been awesome to see.  (Note from the A.R.T. press dept.: "It is Norman, the eel. Yes, he has a name and his health and state of mind is reported together along with that of the cast each night in the performance reports. Norman is a live protagonist who sometimes is totally immobile, othertimes frantically moving around in his constrained tub. Sometimes you will find fish and shrimp given to him for consumption.")

I will also admit there were moments, where having not read the program notes, I was utterly and totally confused by the appearance of additional characters. Only later was I aware that characters from Hitchcock films were meandering through the scenes and that the overall aesthetic choices were fused with Hitchcock’s worlds. It may be useful to go into the show cognizant of Punchdrunk’s influences to catch their full intentions with this production. But aware or not, it’s still an excellent ride (and this time, you get to steer).

So for the most comprehensive experience, do your research before seeing the show. Or don’t and just follow your whims and soak as much as you can in. But don’t miss it. And (if you can afford the $40 ticket) don’t miss seeing it twice. Feel free to fill me in with your own interpretation and ideas at .

Tickets: $39.50. You come in at 7, 7:20 or 7:40. Check the website below for details. The venue is on Boylston Street, but you don’t enter from the street side. You take the adjacent Walnut Path – a short walk – to the side entrance for the show. Speaking of walking, you’ll probably do a lot of it during the performance, as there’s three floors to traverse and explore. It’s also a bit warm in there – hot wearing those masks, too – so dress for the weather, but shed your outer garments at the check-in at the Manderlay Bar and dress lightly, carry little. Parking: You can park free on various side streets, but check the signage for what’s legal and what isn’t and note that in Brookline you can legally park for only two hours and this play runs more than that. So, if the police are out, and of that ticketing mindset, you could be nabbed. Alternative: Park at the 10 Brookline Place Garage, which is $5 with ticket stub, or $7 with stub on weekends. The show's up Tues-Sun and up through Feb. 7. It's a hit! An extended run.

Route 9, 194 Boylston St., Brookline, 617-547-8300 www.amrep.org