![]() Set designs were interesting and detailed, which is why I have given 2 stars.With Stephen Dobbie’s impressively crafted, omnipresent menacing soundtrack, designer and co-drirector Felix Barrett’s mysterious lighting and creepy/stylish abandoned-building setting, this spellbinding take on “Macbeth” is more likely to suggest films like “The Shining,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Wings of Desire” or “Barton Fink” than anything experienced in a legit house. Reasons to go: If you really like interpretative dancing, which is the core of what the actors do. This is smart business, but I don’t think it creates a better immersive experience- an experience built around giving you glimpses to questions that you need to spend more money to answer is psychologically manipulative and ultimately unsatisfying. This encourages your repeat attendance and repeat entrance fee. This deliberate choice is designed to create fear of missing out (FOMO) that you haven’t had the full Sleep No More experience. By design, you are missing out on MOST of the performance content in your visit, and the intersecting storylines remind you of this. You follow actors or explore at your own pace and may get fragments of the story in the process. FOMO: The core characteristic of the Sleep No More experience is that you are NOT presented a coherent story. $4 compulsory coat check on top of the entrance fee- really trying to squeeze every tiny bit of profit from the audience. Arrived on time yet not let in until 30 minutes later due to queue- basic timekeeping for timed entry seems unachievable by the front of house staff, definitely related to the volume of people they let in. This is a capacity and management problem, not an audience problem- everyone deserves the right to actually see the actors for a $140 entrance fee. If you try to follow the actors, you will be jostled constantly by audience members craning their necks for a better view. Profit-oriented: The most fundamental problem: the production. Overall i think id give the concept five stars but otherwise it was a mess. ![]() We tried to find the way out for about ten minutes (running into others doing the same), which left me a bit frustrated. It got tiring wandering floors looking for action/meaning. But the rest seemed unrelated and included only for mood or shock value. Spoiler: There were moving trees (macbeth-ish) and a screaming woman/bloody baby (same), i guess. They seemed to have no point except for perhaps mood or an attempt to titillate. They could have been interpreting “anything “. They were ok but didnt appear related in any way to the story. At one or two points i ran into five or so minute performances. Wandering was better but then you just saw theater sets. The crowd was a bit frenetic and just led to rushing, pushing and jockeying for view-not my thing. You can choose to follow the crowd or wander. At that moment I didn’t know if I was even there - everything was fuzzy, distorted & beautiful. My highlight wasn’t the amazing choreography, epic labyrinth set, slo-mo ‘last supper’ or murderous drum & bass orgy - it was the twisted intimacy of being picked out of a crowd and taken into a cupboard where I was recited poetry by a woman who held my face and told me that our love would last forever. I have always loved the tremendous ambition of punchdrunk from watching there early UK shows and I was relieved to see it here again. When you just sink into the utter surreal ness of it all and accept that life is different here you will have a wondrous experience. However Sleep no More was absolutely bonkers - I think I saw half of the show but I’m not sure which half and if I went next week I might see another half and still have no idea what the hell it was all about. I rarely use the word bonkers - it seems to be one of those words used early & often to describe fairly mundane occurrences in daily life.
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