Review Rundown: Four Courses of Fun

This week No Proscenium is brought to you by MEOW WOLF, opening THE REAL UNREAL on July 14th!

Get to know the unknown in this brand new, mind-bending, interactive art experience located at Grapevine Mills (just north of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport). All ages. All possibilities.

This week’s rundown features four VERY DIFFERENT kinds of experiences across the U.S. and in VR, all of which get upbeat reviews from our far flung crew. Check out the best of what immersive has this summer!

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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Dining Experience — Lost Spirits Distillery
$355-$395; Las Vegas, Ongoing

I’ve spent the past few weeks trying to put into words the wonder that is the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea dining experience. I’m still not sure I have the correct words to fully capture it, but I’m going to try.

You know you’re in for a fun experience when you receive your reminder and confirmation email from Dylan Diveley (their real name!). Upon entry, you are handed a cocktail and encouraged to relax in what is probably the most recognizable room in the entire building- the underwater lounge. As the chandeliers swing, your mind wanders and begins to imagine what the dining experience will be like. 8 ounces of alcohol, the info email warned, that can’t be right, can it? 16 courses? That’s so much food! But will it actually be food, or just a bunch of bites. Will I be hungry afterward? Will I be so full I never want to eat again?

Suddenly your name is called and you are ushered into a small room with a long, beautifully set table. If you came with someone, you are both announced to the room and seated across from each other.

Once everyone has been seated, chef addresses the room, and the experience begins. For the next two hours or so, you are taken on a deep-sea journey of taste, exploration, wonder, and inspiration. I won’t go into menu details here, as it often changes and chef made a point of asking that menu descriptions not be filmed in order to maintain an element of curiosity and surprise. But what I can share is that each course tasted better than the last and the taste was only matched by the incredibly creative presentation. Each course was also paired with a cocktail, with some additional cocktails in-between courses. And some courses being edible shots.

The room is designed to feel as if you are the last remaining humans, surviving under the sea after a catastrophic event that encouraged you to question taboos, get creative with ingredients, challenge priorities, and explore themes of endless gratitude and wonder. Music plays a key role in this masterpiece, moving the story down deeper and deeper until you resurface and enjoy the sweet taste of happy memories and innovation.

The waitstaff was so professional and kind, chef Taylor Persh is creative and daring, and the bartender displayed incredible skill and mastery of flavor. You can taste the love and passion poured into every bite, sip, and spoken word.

The experience runs Thursday-Saturday with two time slots each night. For obvious reasons, this is a 21+ experience. I would highly recommend it for date nights, food lovers, fine dining enthusiasts, and well, practically everyone who enjoys rum. This truly is an outstanding experience from start to finish.

— Briana Roecks, Travel Correspondent

The Fantasy Tavern — Here’s a Health to the Company
$39.47; NYC; Monthly — July 22nd, August 12th

The Fantasy Tavern is an interactive performance recreating the traditional tavern of days of yore as featured in D&D campaigns, magical stories, and beloved films. In this experience, audience members are invited to join a table, grab a drink, and interact with NPC characters — a wizard, a fae, a pirate, and a druid. Each character has their own side quest with details displayed on posters in the room. If you complete their quest, you may receive a special prize or trinket to add to your inventory. There is also a worksheet at each table with a custom bingo card, a complete the mer-person drawing, and a space to design a crest for your crew. The event goes back and forth through waves of a pub sing along that includes participation and games and a less structured mingling period where folks can grab drinks, work on side quests, and make new friends.

The event is highly immersive in the sense that the audience is bought in from arrival; much like a renaissance faire, almost everyone showed up in costume with a character ready to go, and some folks even prepared a side quest of their own for others to complete. Audience members are keen to participate and are rewarded for niche interests and knowledge in both games and quests. Some lore woven into this month’s event included The Golden Girls, Pokemon, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Lord of the Rings, Adventure Time, and various anime series amongst many others. There is truly something for everyone here. The space is delightfully inclusive and everyone is unabashedly celebrated for who they are. This month’s event was Pride themed but I was assured by the creators that it is pretty much “always this gay!”

The Fantasy Tavern is a great event to bring a group of friends to, but if you’re going solo or in a couple be prepared to turn on your networking face as the unstructured mingling periods can feel a bit long without an established group. The quests, busy work, and NPC characters are a great mitigation to this, and the incorporation of more of all three would make the event feel complete for a solo traveler. Whether you’re a fan of renaissance fairies and Dungeons & Dragons or simply seeking a unique immersive experience, The Fantasy Tavern is a must-visit. So gather your friends and embark on an unforgettable journey filled with songs, stories, and far too much grog.

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— Allie Marotta, New York City Curator

The Secret of Retropolis 2: Never Say Goodbye — Peanut Button
$24.99 (season pass); VR; Episode 1, Available Now

The Secret of Retropolis 2: Never Say Goodbye is a VR experience from Israeli game studio Peanut Button, being the sequel to the studio’s debut game. Players once again play as robot private eye Philip Log, whose life is in the dumps. The love of his life, Jenny Montage, has been missing for a year, having been kidnapped by the mysterious mafia figure The Magician. When a fresh lead falls into Log’s lap, he’s back on the case…quickly realizing nothing is what it seems as complications mount.

Above all, Retropolis 2 is a testament to Peanut Button’s creative growth as game designers. While the visuals remain rooted in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, the studio leans heavily into a film noir motif for the sequel. This choice allows their own visual aesthetic stylings to take center focus, with their amazing character designs and captivating set pieces feeling more uniquely personal than representative of other work. Retropolis 2 narrative is tightly woven, with the story being conveyed through focused imagery. As the action clips along because of this choice, I easily empathize with Log’s quest to find Montage, instilling a palpable tension during gameplay.

Additionally returning from the first game is composer Yuval Levi, whose music once again heightens every dramatic beat. While Peanut Button has created a fantastic world, it’s Levi’s enthralling jazz and electric fusion score that’s the Retropolis series lively, beating pulse.

As for the gameplay, Peanut Button warned they’d received feedback that the puzzles were too hard. I generally didn’t find that to be true, as Retropolis 2’s puzzle design is far superior to the original game. It’s far more intuitive to understand how environment elements are used or combined with other items. Most of Episode One consists of exploring a multi-leveled location, requiring constant movement between floors to solve puzzles. The whole location is a fantastic, smartly designed puzzler’s delight, the backbone to Peanut Button’s aforementioned creative growth.

Now, what makes it “too hard” is there’s too little direction given on how to initially get started in any new environment. Log only provides commentary when interacting with elements or characters, his dialogue being descriptive and flavorful rather than instructive or insightful. Also one environment is very dark, essentially obscuring objects and paths. This required a trial-and-error process to get started in any area, which isn’t terribly rewarding. Only when stumbling upon the correct string to pull on is when the strong puzzle design kicks in.

While each puzzle is highly challenging to begin, The Secret of Retropolis 2: Never Say Goodbye’s short first episode is a slick and engrossing VR experience, one I eagerly await to see where Peanut Button takes next with further content.

– Patrick B. McLean, Chicago Curator & Remote Experiences Editors

Where There’s Smoke — Lance Weiler
Free; Artyard, Frenchtown, NJ; Through October 1, 2023

When we love someone, or even just spend our lives with them whatever our emotions may be, the objects that form the fabric of our lives take their reflection. And even when they’re gone, the temptation to find that reflection in those objects can be overwhelming.

Lance Weiler’s Where There’s Smoke is a stunningly personal exhibit that continues to resonate with audiences. The act of sorting through a mountain of ephemera, tracing his footsteps as he cleans out his father’s belongings after his passing, and reevaluates their complex relationship. Both he, and the audience, chase a central mystery: was Weiler’s father just a firefighter with the unusual hobby of photographing burning buildings? Or did his attraction to fire go farther, leading him to commit a handful of acts of arson?

Dedicated audience members won’t find any particular answers, but will find a number of meditations on memory, family, death, and loss as they proceed through the exhibit. Lance Weiler’s favorite technology, spatial recognition triggering location specific audio as audiences wander, has never been better executed than in this current staging of the piece.

Still, I think back to the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Where There’s Smoke in 2019. While the technology of the current iteration is certainly more impressive, the piece has lost much of its onboarding, the distinct narrative flow the original staging had as a theatrical piece as opposed to an art installation, and many of the sensory and tactile element, such as the smell of smoke, or the stained, charred easy chairs the audience rested in. In their place, we get access to far more of Weiler’s ephemera to sort through, but the context can feel lost. Where this staging moved me, the original moved me to tears.

Still, it’s a profound experience that tackles a wide range of complex themes with sensitivity and grace. For anyone who’s suffered the slow loss of a parent, or struggled to truly know them as evidence of who they were fades into the mists of time, there’s a lot to relate to. The photography is beautiful, and a few of the new tactile elements were highly resonant.

Grief is a never-ending process. Even when you find closure, you still carry it with you. Hence, I suspect Where There’s Smoke, one of the most elegant memorial pieces I’ve ever seen, will never truly be “complete”. Still, for those who can make it to Frenchtown, it’s worth witnessing the current iteration, and following the threads of unconditional love that remain the core of the piece, no matter what it’s execution may be.

— Blake Weil, East Coast Editor at Large

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