‘444bidden Fructus’ Satisfies the Spirit (The NoPro Review)

444bidden Fructus (“Forbidden Fruit”) is a “60-minute virtual & remote one-on-one personalized immersive mystery experience conducted via USPS & Zoom.”

Personalized, however, is an understatement.

Creator Elisabeth Stranathan AKA “Dr. Eden Cometz the 2nd, Director of the Archeological Department, and the Lead Librarian of the Historical Grand Archives” at Project_Infinite_Architect, creates highly bespoke experiences for inward-looking individuals. Stranathan spends hours combing through collected ephemera, turning scraps of metal and paper into artifacts that are destined for the doorsteps of interchronal explorers like you. So no two packages — or shows — are alike.

My 444bidden Fructus experience kicked off with a questionnaire. It felt familiar, partially because I had the pleasure of attending 444 Liberatio in March and Stranathan’s voice is an integral part of her art. But mostly because I lived through the ’90s, when “SeNd tHI s to 7 pEoplE for GOOD LuCK” chain emails were a thing. This questionnaire’s design was all over the place.

A tangent: one thing I look for in immersive theatre is how well a show’s peripheral material aligns with its main experience. Not all creators understand that their audience’s journey starts at “buy ticket” and continues indefinitely. Souvenirs and sense memories bubble up weeks, months, or years down the line, pulling us back into that specific audience-creator relationship. Which is why poorly formatted pre-and-post-show communications drive me nuts. They read like inattention to detail and create a barrier between audience and immersion. How am I supposed to trust a creator that doesn’t consider my entire journey, you know?

That’s a long way of saying that I’m skeptical of shows which don’t exhibit a strong sense of internal consistency. Normally, the fractured nature of 444bidden Fructus’ “STAT GRABZ” survey would have been a warning sign, something to make me gird my immersive loins. But Stranathan is so consistent in her approach to language and communication that the questionnaire felt more like an informational signpost. “Strange things lie ahead. You have no idea what you’re getting into.”

(Minor spoilers follow.)

Most of 444bidden Fructus’ pre-show questions are optional, but you’ll get more out of the experience if you’re honest and thorough. Personal disclosure is part of the fun, so don’t think too hard about those word-association prompts and try not to dissect the existential stuff. For example: “If You were Reincarnated as a Human- where & when in Time would You want to Live Next?” Anything goes in this section. My answer: “That’s a tough one because it depends on so many variables. If the world goes to hell and implodes from climate change and infighting, then I wouldn’t bother living in the future. I’d be a park ranger in the Santa Cruz Mountains circa 1970. Otherwise, I’d skip forward 200 years and live in Berlin. Or Iceland. Somewhere with socialized medicine and cool weather.”

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I spent a few days answering every single question. By mid-July, I was done.

Three weeks later, my mysterious package arrived.

Your own personal “ARTifact” will show up some time before, during, or after your scheduled show date (time is cyclical, after all). But if you’re patient and a little flexible, Stranathan will make sure you arrive when and where you need to be. That’s when the adventure begins. 444bidden Fructus toggles rapidly between reality and what’s-probably-but-not-certainly-make-believe, blurring the borders of magick, superstition, and shared interest. Ostensibly, you’re “working” for a department that finds and archives time anomalies. Your supervisor (the aforementioned Dr. Eden Cometz the 2nd) has discovered one that seems connected to you. And, since only the object’s original author can unlock its secrets, it’s up to you to interpret the thing and set time back on its intended path.

I say ostensibly because the line between performance and life gets extremely thin in Stranathan’s work. Don’t be surprised if your journey slams stories from Stranathan’s real life right up against observations from the fictional Dr. Cometz and tangents about poetry or regional bird species. Mine did. The sooner you let go of your narrative expectations and embrace the liminal nature of 444bidden Fructus, the more you’ll get out of it. This lack of clarity between what-is-and-what-isn’t part of the show is one of its best features. And Stranathan works hard to make participants feel seen. Letting you see her in return creates a bond that extends well beyond the hour you spend together.

By the time Stranathan ended our call, the contents of my package were no longer done up in neat little bundles. Nothing about this show is slick or overly produced. A stack of tea-stained ciphers, a broken watch, and a pad of purple ink lay scattered across my bed. Some of the papers I had tried to organize into piles on my comforter had drifted to the floor, adding to the general chaos. (Fair warning: do your 444bidden Fructus call on a hard surface; there will be glitter.) It was after 10 pm; I had gold paint under my fingernails and a length of ribbon wrapped around my wrist. There had been so many tactile bits and pieces to explore! And that’s not even counting the main event — a thick book I had barely had time to crack open during the show.

Ultimately, 444bidden Fructus is meant for adventurers, collectors, and empaths. It’s for people who love astrology, people who hate astrology but like the aesthetic, and anyone curious about trying something new. The show goes by quickly, so my recommendation is to leave yourself plenty of time to breathe, both before and after your scheduled hour. The questions you’re asked to consider and the art you’re left to explore are both gifts, ones you can use to consider which parts of yourself you’d like to cultivate and which parts you might want to leave behind. I left 444bidden Fructus feeling like I had been handed a suspiciously accurate horoscope: pleased, bewildered, and wondering how much of what I experienced was specifically about me. How much was universally true? How much had I wanted to believe because it fit into my idealized self-narrative? Turns out I was leaving this show with more questions than answers. That damn questionnaire had aligned with my experience after all.

A few days have passed since my Project_Infinite_Architect meeting. I’m still thinking about the chronological anomaly (aka the personalized art book filled with references to my life and times) I accidentally co-authored with Stranathan last month. Flipping through its pages, I see fractal pathways of self-discovery and I know my 444bidden Fructus journey is far from over. This is one I’m going to circle back on again, and again, and again.

444bidden Fructus runs through September 8; tickets are $95.95.

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