Review Rundown: The One Where We Land On Boardwalk

The rundown rolls in this week with a grographical and thematic grab bag: the latest from Third Rail Project in NYC as the company tries something new. The Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) Off-Center rolls the dice on the “Travel Edition” of the London hit Monopoly Lifesized. Plus On-Site Opera’s latest in NYC (which also popped up in Seattle), and the new Olafur Eliasson exhibition at LA’s MOCA Geffen Contemporary.

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Lucidity — On Site Opera
$75, NYC, run concluded

I’m always happy to see different forms try their hand at immersive. In that spirit, we have On Site Opera’s Lucidity, an operatic piece about memory and identity. I’m not an expert or even regular consumer of opera, so what you are getting here is the immersive-deep, opera-light review of the show.

Lucidity crosses the line into immersive, but barely. The staging is reversed — it’s in a theater, but the audience sits on the stage and much of the action happens in the orchestra seating and balcony. That and a bit of decoration in the hallways is the extent of the immersion. However, what On Site Opera specializes in are intimate productions in non-traditional spaces and that here was very realized. I have never seen an opera where the singers and musicians were less than 20 feet away. You appreciate the power of the voices in a different way when they are so close. I also can’t really speak to the quality of the music, but the singers seemed very talented to me.

What worked best for me in Lucidity is the story. A neuroscientist investigates the capacity of music to restore memory in patients with dementia by having a young clarinetist play for a declining singer (Lili) and her son Dante. We slowly learn that everyone in the story has been a musician at one point. The opera explores what each character has left behind (music, family, memory) and what that means to their current identities as performers, caretakers, and healers. There was welcome complexity in understanding how Dante gave up his music career due to racism and needing to care for his mother or in the doctor’s twin loves of science and music. In particular, the opera does not shy away from the horrors of dementia, and despite a somewhat cheesy last thought, Lili’s story alternates between heartwarming and tragic, exposing the pain of her growing confusion. Still, I’m not sure what the reverse staging had to do with the story — it seems like there was a missed opportunity to say something about loss and re-invention in the setting.

Overall, I liked Lucidity. The immersive critic in me wanted the staging to be more purposeful to the story and wished it avoided the last pablum impulse, but I congratulate On Site Opera for a good story and hope they pursue more ambitious immersive ideas in the future.

— Nicholas Fortugno, New York Correspondent

Monopoly Lifesized: Travel Edition — The Path Entertainment Group presented by The Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) Off-Center

From $46; Denver, CO; through January 5, 2025

Stepping onto the lifesize board that looked identical to the promotional video, I was instantly impressed with the quality of the set. From sturdy props and hardware to the sound, lighting, and tech — everything had a professional edge to it that the DCPA consistently brings to their shows.

The game also played exactly as it was described: solve escape room-style challenges on a giant Monopoly board, which will unlock your chance to buy property, charge rent, and break out of jail.

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They also use words like “exhilarating” and “high octane” to describe the experience, which I unfortunately found to be code words for “sensory overload.” With 24 people talking amongst their groups, two game guides on mics, and a loud soundtrack in the background, the high energy vibe they were cultivating made it difficult to hear everything our guide had to say — like rules, and how to make strategic moves.

You don’t need to know anything about Monopoly to play Monopoly Lifesized… but you will enjoy it more if you do. For one, I’m sure it’s a dream-come-true for Monopoly fans to step into the game and onto the lifesized board. Secondly, a Monopoly fan might actually have a shot at the trivia questions presented randomly throughout the game. And finally, while not required, a general understanding of the game is certainly beneficial in quickly understanding how to make strategic moves in this slightly altered version of the original.

There are at least 12 rooms on the board, but my team only got to see three, and had to play one room twice. Because of this, the game certainly has a lot of replayability… but at $46 per person per game, I’m not sure how many would consider coming back for another round. The game also lets you book six people per team, but I found that to be too many cooks in the kitchen and always left someone standing in the back watching others solve the puzzle. Alas, book only three of four for your group and you may find yourself solving puzzles in a high stress situation with total strangers.

While not perfect, the game format was fun and innovative. Most of the puzzles were well designed with effective tech and hardware. And perhaps most importantly, the visuals and mechanics from the original game effectively made good on the promise of playing a lifesize version of Monopoly.

— Danielle Riha, Denver Correspondent

Olafur Eliasson: OPEN — MOCA Geffen Contemporary
$10 -$18; Los Angeles; through July 6, 2025

Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson brings his hypnotically calming blend of shadow and light in a grand MOCA exhibit that should greatly excite immersive art lovers. Spread across six rooms are works that place the spectator in front of, behind, below, and within pieces that play with light and space and force us to consider humanity’s place in the world and reality writ large.

One of the most engaging large scale pieces, Pluriverse assembly, has the audience walking into a gallery where they can just see a scrim with reflections and shadows subtly shifting and morphing over time. Only when the viewer walks around to the rear of the scrim can one see the lights and mobiles which create those shadows thus “explaining” the work in real time. Much like Eliasson’s incredible site responsive work 2018’s Reality Projector at the Marciano Art Foundation, the combination of deceptively simple principles of light and shadow are expounded upon to great effect.

Other works throughout OPEN explored different principles, with the first gallery viewers encounter exploring four futures for our planet that humans might never experience. Done as four structures that go from above head height to ceiling, we enter and look up at spaces of fire, water, air, and darkness that bring calm and contemplation about these eventual points in our world’s life cycle. There are works that play with reflection and space, creating optical illusions of rings floating in mid air, and giant kaleidoscopes which will enthrall as one stares into infinity.

Eliasson’s work invites play and exploration all the while reflecting challenges that humanity has to grapple with. In the reading room, there’s a short video of Eliasson positing a series of questions to the viewer and himself. One need not be an immersive art lover to be moved by these works of grand scale, but this will be an exhibit that the immersive community should be discussing for years to come.

— Martin Gimenez — Reviewer At Large

True Love Forever — Third Rail Projects
$106, NYC, Nov. 21–23 and Dec. 13–15

True Love Forever is Third Rail Projects’ newest piece helmed by one-third of the beloved company’s artistic directors, Jennine Willett, in collaboration with musician Coyle Girelli. The experience is marketed as an immersive collision with an indie rock concert that tackles the themes of love and heartbreak, and while it was inspired by Girelli’s solo album Love Kills, it also includes new songs written for the show. In traditional Third Rail Projects fashion, the performance is largely dance and movement-based, featuring mesmerizing choreography and phenomenal performances that, when combined with the music, tell snippets of different stories of love and loss.

The piece takes on a vignette-like structure and ruminates on multiple aspects of all things love-related. While this format can work quite nicely for immersive work, it felt a bit strange in this performance. I found myself missing the thoughtful and intricately detailed storylines and world-building that Third Rail Projects is known for. Additionally, I found the concept of the band lacking integration into the world of the piece. It really wasn’t clear why they were present or how they functioned in this world. In conjunction with the lack of environmental curation, with the majority of the piece taking place in a black box-esque space, I yearned for the world this piece could have lived in. The experience also takes place in a three-quarter thrust stage configuration which the audience remains seated around throughout the evening, save for one short moment in which spectators are invited to sit in a group with individual performers for a brief activity. Attempts at including the audience were certainly made, but they were superficial and generally treated the audience like a prop which felt strikingly different from the intimate and purposeful audience engagement strategies that are characteristic of Third Rail Projects’ work. With all of these key immersive aspects significantly missing the mark, or just plain missing entirely, I hesitate to call True Love Forever immersive; to quote my colleague, this piece is more “immersive light.”

As a long-time Third Rail Projects fan, I wantedfor this piece to be a new smash hit so badly, but this run felt a lot more like a proof of concept or a part in a developmental process than a finished piece. I hope to see True Love Forever continue to develop and become a part of the Third Rail Projects canon in the future.

— Allie Marotta, NYC Curator

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