Review Rundown: The One Where NYC Immersive Got Its Groove Back

NYC, we see you.

(I’ve got a headache, so let’s get into it.)

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Bottom of the Ocean — Andrew Hoepfner, Gymnopedie
$20–45; New York, NY; Run ongoing

I step out into the real world again, like I am waking from a beautiful dream. I inhale the fresh cool air, like a diver inhaling breaching the surface, post-nautical expedition. Yet I yearn to return back to the depths. How much of what I just experienced had been real? Bottom of the Ocean (BOTO for short) is a brand new immersive experience from Andrew Hoepfner, creator of Houseworld and co-creator of Whisperlodge. The show occupies a unique space known as Gymnopedie, which lies hidden beneath an old church building in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Walking down a set of stairs, a neon sine wave greets visitors, and a password is required for entry. Once my initiation test is completed, I am led to a waiting room, surrounded by the sea. Seascapes, nautical vessels, and the skeleton of a seal all leer down at me from their frames. The space is dark and a gentle hum seems to envelop me. Soon it is time, and I am invited to cross the veil, to descend to the deepest darkest waters in my journey to the bottom of the ocean.

I have decided to try to paint a picture of BOTO using as broad strokes as possible, as I believe that any more detail could potentially take away from an individual’s experience in this experience. The essence of the show is an exploration of nautical life, of what might be found lurking in the depths of the ocean, but also an exploration of oneself through guided meditation and reflection. The past hours seem to have flown by, yet somehow also seem to have felt like an eternity. Sadly, I must turn away from the calling waves behind me, leaving their siren call, and return to the mundane.

— Edward Mylechreest, New York City Correspondent, from his upcoming full review

Mañanaland — Zizi Majid, The Tank
Free; New York, NY; Run Concluded

Mañanaland is an augmented reality game, taking place in the epicenter of the theatrical world, Times Square, with the goal to engage with participants with social and political issues.

Following several issues with the scanning of QR codes, I am able to download the app Scavengar to use with the experience. As a side note to all creators, it is imperative that QR codes are thoroughly tested to ensure ease of use, particularly when their use is integral to the experience. I would rather have been told to download the app in advance than go through the awkward struggle of having volunteers trying to guide me through what should be a simple process.

This app allows images to appear on my (iPhone only) screen, for me to interact with. Images of art pieces, or abstract objects, float on the screen for participants to run towards, triggering a trivia question, ten in all. All the answers relied on prior knowledge, rather than being possible to answer using the surroundings which felt like a missed opportunity.

The whole experience took just over 7 minutes, and despite advertising itself as “a multidisciplinary theatrical experience,” it really was just a political art themed trivia game by the red steps of Times Square. The concept of having an AR piece in the middle of Times Square is very interesting, but the actual user experience is very frustrating. Unsurprisingly to any New Yorker, this is one of the busiest locations in the world. Being asked to run through an already crowded area, to reach an object that no one else can see, is not particularly user friendly.

While I enjoyed the short quiz, teasing out my theatrical knowledge, I left with more questions than answers.

— Edward Mylechreest, New York City Correspondent

Midsummer: A Shakespeariance — Variety Life Productions
$100–125; NYC; Through November 21, 2021

Though perhaps not the most conventional place to begin a review, I’d like to start at the end: when I walked out of Midsummer: A Shakespearience, my eyes welled with tears of joy. Creating a good immersive show is hard — creating a good immersive show that is funny and uplifting without being cheesy is nearly impossible. But with Midsummer: A Shakespearience, Variety Life Productions pulled it off.

(Spoilers follow.)

Half jazzy Vaudeville show, half Shakespeare, Midsummer seeks to answer an age-old question: when you’re immortal, what do you do for fun? While Oberon, king of the fairies, has an affinity for pranks (such as making his queen fall in love with a donkey), his queen, Titania, loves a good, old-fashioned talent show.

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Here, the two couples central to Shakespeare’s play are a side act who occasionally have tap dance battles. The real stars of the show are Titania’s performers: a seven-foot-tall drag queen in butterfly wings balancing a candelabra on a knife between her teeth, a contortionist clad only in sparkles, and best of all, the troupe of actors performing “Pyramus and Thisbe.”

Though funny in Shakespeare’s original A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Variety Life’s retelling is hilarious. The Wall enters and exits the stage via voguing, Pyramus beatboxes, the deadly Lion plays bucket drums, and the Moon — the delightful Moon — does a burlesque strip tease dressed as an astronaut before twerking atop a ladder in glittering spandex, casting a glittering, disco ball-esque light across the room.

It sounds wild, I know. It was wild. But it’s also the most fun I’ve had in ages. If you’re looking for a laugh, a spectacle, or just a reason to feel jubilant, I highly recommend checking out Midsummer: A Shakespearience.

— Cheyenne Ligon, NYC Correspondent

Mourning Wreath Upon the Door — Escapism Productions
The Isham-Terry House in Hartford, CT; $45, run concluded

This is a great experience for newbies.

Producer/Director Jackson Kulinski greets everyone at the door to set expectations and explain how immersive theatre works. The show unfolds across a lush (but not too-large-to-explore) collection of rooms that reward curiosity without requiring interaction. First-timers can absolutely stand back and enjoy the story on their own terms: it’s 1899 and the Beddows family is mourning the loss of their youngest son. Together you’ll grapple with themes of death and the supernatural. Wait, though. Did I say this show was for newbies?

Because I meant LARPers. The whole cast is skilled with improv and will absolutely treat you like an old friend if you give them half a chance. Within the first two minutes I was chatting away with Charles Beddows, getting hints about a narrative thread that was only exposed twice over the show’s run. I was struck by the actors’ collective emotional range. Their characters felt lived in and complex, which encouraged me to engage with their story on a more human level. But hold up. Did I say LARPers? I meant experienced fans. A lack of rails gives seasoned audience members autonomy to seek out lonely characters for quiet conversations.

My own exploration paid off in a haunting exchange on a staircase. Crap, no. Experienced fans? I meant history buffs. Jess Bolduc’s detailed costumes are beautifully accurate and Lovecraftians are in for a treat. Clearly, this show was intentionally designed to have something for everyone. And somehow it works. It’s not some large-scale production with a huge budget — the lighting is limited and there’s no audio to speak of. But Escapism Productions combined elements of game play, theatre, and historical reenactment to create something really satisfying. And I was sorry to leave that world behind.

— Leah Davis, New England Correspondent

Ritual — Witness Immersive
Free; NYC; Run Concluded

I am on the precipice of taking revenge…

So begins a letter from Orestes to his uncle, Menelaus. As he is in Aeschylus’s Oresteia — a classic Greek trilogy about a family cursed by death and the endless cycle of revenge — our Orestes is a young man, sleepwalking through grief, driven only by the pursuit of vengeance.

But in Ritual, an eight-hour immersive retelling of the Oresteia by NYC-based theatre company Witness, Orestes is no warrior prince. Instead, he’s a lanky young man in a basement apartment, a bowl of soggy Lucky Charms left forgotten on his nightstand.

Ritual beautifully weaves the ancient tale of Orestes with the modern, in both story and setting. The crowd wanders like ghosts through Orestes’ life, opening up cabinets and picking up photos of long-dead family members. We rifle through his drawers; in one, a haphazard stack of granola bars and dried fruit. In another, tiny model ships swim in a sea of cerulean yarn.

In Ritual’s retelling of Orestes’ story, Orestes waits for a sign from the gods that he should go forth in killing his mother, Clytemnestra, to avenge her murder of his father. But the gods, who once talked to Orestes, have suddenly gone silent. By his bed, a meticulously-kept dream journal documents dreams filled with symbols and imagery — doors made of polished horn, flaming swords — have suddenly gone silent.

As Orestes waits for instructions from the gods, dreams of the Furies plague him. In one spectacular scene, a fellow participant (Rebecca Margolick) is revealed to be a Fury. Recognizing her, Orestes pulls off her mask. When she smiles at him, a mouthful of dark red blood splatters on the floor.

Ritual was all-around spectacular. Arjun Pande’s performance of Orestes was spellbinding, the set design incredible, and the lighting and music create a haunting atmosphere.

— Cheyenne Ligon, NYC Correspondent

What They Forgot To Tell Us (and other stories) — BOLD
£20–25; London; through 14 November 2021

BOLD makes creative use of their home space in a site-specific promenade performance of What They Forgot To Tell Us, an away-day storytelling workshop which starts out comedic and slowly unravels into melodrama. With clever use of levels and opposing angles around the building, the audience is treated to a tour of their newly repurposed venue with bite-size stories offered in each new area.

Unfortunately, in the rush to create and deliver an encompassing narrative as well as permit every actor to showcase their individual talents, WTFTTU unfortunately manages to undercut its own premise and the audience buy-in by setting itself up as a storytelling agency and then not give its audience any of their own: the progression is solid-structure with no participation needed except a willingness to move as ushered around the building. The poignant monologues have genuine gravitas but the overall narrative appears stapled together between them and would benefit from allowing the audience some interactivity with the workshop motif.

For anyone still hesitant about Covid, the staging is far from conscious of crowding or ventilation concerns: audience masks are requested but the actors are close enough and the rooms small enough that they’re a moot point.

BOLD is likely simply excited about the debut of their new space, and operating within the current latitude provided to England’s theatre community they’re exercising the same practice exhibited by many other less-Covid-conscious companies. With the excellently presented comedic introduction and choreographed farce, WTFFTTU has plenty of potential for genuine immersivity if they’d just let the audience in on it.

— Shelley Snyder, London Curator

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

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