Immersive Review Rundown: The One With Russian Tsars & Australian Overachievers

This week we’ve got a review of the highly anticipated The Death of Rasputin in NYC, which has just extended through the end of May on Governor’s Island. We also revisit the anarchic Burnout Paradise, recently seen at the Without Walls Festival on the UC San Diego campus. Plus: One-Eighth Theater’s Class Dismissed in NYC.

NoPro is 100% reader & listener supported. Join our Patreon campaign to secure & expand our coverage of Everything Immersive! Get the NoPro Newsletter and access to our Discord when you do. You can also GIFT memberships.

Want more? Check out our most recent edition and our REVIEWS section.

Check out our How To Get Covered By NoPro guide to submit your events & experiences for review.

Want to get listed in our newsletter?
Submit a listing to Everything Immersive.

Burnout Paradise — Pony Cam Collective
Without Walls Festival; UC San Diego; Festival Run Complete

This isn’t the first time we’ve reviewed Burnout Paradise, and I suspect it won’t be our last. If only because our team members keep going to it wherever in the world that it pops up and, generally, have a ball when it does.

There’s a real anarchic communal joy to the show from Australia’s Pony Cam Collective, which has been touring the United States and wound up at the Without Walls Festival at UC San Diego of late. Said joy consists of aiding and abetting four members of Pony Cam Collective as they run through a series of tasks: make a three course meal, fill out a grant application, do some performance art, and a seemingly endless to-do list on a white board placed on stage.

All while running on treadmills and seeking to beat their personal collective best running distance over the course of the show.

Now you could just sit back and watch, and plenty of people do, but the show also provides ample opportunities for the crowd to get involved. So much so that at a certain point the show really does stop being about what these four people on stage are doing and starts being about how we collectively enable each others efforts. Here that just so happens to be centered around these four performers, but while they may be the ones on the stage they will fail utterly if the audience does not get involved.

It’s a lovely representation of what makes immersive work so special, even as the piece easily fits inside a standard issue theatrical space.

When Burnout Paradise makes it to your town: Go.

— Noah J. Nelson, Founder & Publisher

Class Dismissed — One-Eighth Theater
$35; NYC; through May 4th

The bar is much higher in absurdist theater than traditional work; you have to find some way to connect the chaos into a complete experience. Class Dismissed by One-Eighth Theater is an aggressively absurd piece that accomplishes this through its skilled writing and performance.

Class Dismissed is a very random show. Four actors perform in three groups: a professor giving a philosophical lecture, a group of two students trading academic aphorisms, and a rival professor recounting a personal memoir. As they pontificate, they scribble chalk lines over the stage, march comically in circles, or call attendees to hold props, dance, or read from random books. The audience is at one point given very necessary splash guards. In many ways, this is a clown show of blunt and unsophisticated antics.

Two things save it from being random slapstick. The writer Robert Lyons has brought a lot of genuine critical theory into the script and the crazy scenes of graduations, book readings, and mock war zones are all glossed by pithy post-capitalist deconstructionist pronouncements shouted in fragmented and contextless snippets. The lectures explore the unwritten works of esteemed authors imagined by audiences while the memoir is a pretentious reflection on an elitist vacation and love affair. The entire piece is a commentary on intellectual rebellion, mocking the practice of critical self-importance using its clownish methods.

The performances are the other elevating factor. It is not easy to deliver fragmented critical theory as comedy. Add to that tons of audience participation, culminating in the entire house coming on stage to eat bread that was made just before the show. Given the chaos of the piece, it’s incredible that the entire cast keeps the show so alive and on theme. And the composer Rhys Tivey deserves specific praise for the excellent music and his ability to sing, maintain a rhythm on a keyboard while soloing on a trumpet, and spastically deliver Frankfort School one-liners in the space of minutes.

Your mileage is going to vary here based on your tolerance for nonsense and crude humor. But you really can’t ask for more dedication from the cast, and the show has a self-depreciative tone that makes participation fun and safe. At the same time, to an audience who understands the academic context, it’s clear that there’s a parodic center to the noise. It’s worth it to check out Class Dismissed — you might just learn something.

— Nicholas Fortugno, New York Correspondent

The Death of Rasputin — Artemis is Burning
From $148; New York City; Through May 31

What does it mean to join a cult? To follow a leader? Frequently, characters are ‘followed’ in promenade theatre, but it’s rare that it’s explored quite so literally as in The Death of Rasputin, a show all about cults, their leaders, and their followers.

Spanning both floors of the Arts Center at Governors Island (tickets include roundtrip ferry passage), The Death of Rasputin explores the tumultuous final days of the Russian Empire and the factions aiming to seize power — or preserve it. Unlike in many immersive shows, the characters in TDOR frequently see the audience, who are variously followers, bar patrons, confidantes, or collaborators.

If you’re worried about audience interaction, rest easy. The interactions I witnessed were inclusive rather than putting anyone on the spot, the occasional teasing gentle rather than cruel, and most interactions were spread across groups rather than singling anyone out.

Many immersive works focus on humanity’s dark side. The Death of Rasputin has its share of that. But the show is also very funny, while not undercutting its own pathos. There is so much going on, of a variety of tones and moods. Multiple viewings are definitely needed to see everyone’s entire plot. If what you’re seeing doesn’t fit the tone you’re seeking, try a different room. You’ll find a new story quickly thanks to a set that is expansive without being over-large.

The set design is assisted in audience discovery by the show being very “talky.” Eschewing the near-wordlessness of many large immersive shows, TDOR is full of conversations, most of which you can easily hear happening from adjacent rooms. It adds to the feeling of a vibrant world, and encourages audience members to go find something they feel is interesting. Though actors are unamplified, they’re seldom wholly drowned out by the score, and I rarely missed their dialogue.

The show is delightfully acted by every single performer, and their plots are tightly constructed. As you wander into a character’s story, they’re likely to repeat necessary exposition at some point so that you aren’t wholly at a loss. The show starts fast and hurtles toward a conclusion, so the reminders are appreciated.

Rasputin tells us to “Love freely. Love deeply. Love openly.” I love this show, freely, deeply, and openly, and I’m so excited to watch it develop and get refined and grow. Trek across the harbor and take a chance on joining this cult.

— Penelope Ray, NYC Correspondent

Discover the latest immersive events, festivals, workshops, and more at our new site EVERYTHING IMMERSIVE, home of NoPro’s show listings.

NoPro is a labor of love made possible by our generous Patreon backers. Join them today and get access to our Newsletter and Discord! You can also GIFT memberships.

In addition to the No Proscenium website and our podcast, and you can find NoPro on Bluesky, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and in the Facebook community also named Everything Immersive.l