Review Rundown: The One With Eldritch Opera in London and Demodogs in LA

Just three things in this Rundown, but fun ones across the board. But don’t fret, this isn’t a slowdown. We’ve got MULTIPLE long-form reviews in the edit queue for after the Thanksgiving break, and this week will see the 2022 NoPro Gift Guide drop as well.

A little “calm before the storm” action.

Looking for more? Our most recent Rundown “The One That Looks To The Past and Parallel Presents” is waiting for you then and now.

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Come Bargain With Uncanny Things — Virtually Opera
£10–30; London, UK; through 27 November 2022

Immersive eldritch opera. Who’d have thought?

Virtually Opera has set up shop for a limited run in the COLAB Tavern and has transformed the converted pub into a den of ritual and mystery. Bound to the floor by magical singing is an Uncanny Thing: a fey/hell-kin/demon which will perform miracles and give us answers.

Provided that we ask the right questions, and take care not to offend it.

Deceptively constrained by time-based structure (3 phases of challenges including an interval across 2.5 hours) , the narrative is in fact lore-rich and boundless in opportunity for audience improvisation/interactivity. Audience members are as involved or removed as they choose to be and every decision has an effect on the script: all praise to the cast who react in real time, formulating suitable consequences to an ill-worded request and teaching us to be much more careful when dealing with unknowable forces.

But the most charming part? Being one of about eight adults, from young to senior, immediately diving into a pile of craft supplies with intent to make something, anything, to appease the Uncanny Thing. Without children present to provide an excuse for enthusiasm, one would expect a group of strangers in England to be more hesitant, reserved, unlikely to risk embarrassing themselves. And yet here we suddenly all were: giggling and snipping and coloring and molding. The memory of how to make a paper fortune-teller bubbles up from deep within my prepubescent memory and suddenly my hands have made it and are showing off to the others, who are all cooing over each other’s hastily-formed creations and offering them up as bargaining tokens.

Is the singing — strictly speaking — necessary to the plot? No, but it’s an opera company, so just suspend disbelief and enjoy the ASMR-adjacent experience.

Though I’m almost certain that Virtually Opera didn’t set out to make anything of the sort, I can’t help feeling that Come Bargain might make a brilliant company bonding activity: a corporate away half-day that might generate a ton of funds for the producers while boosting collaborative creativity and playfulness among colleagues — a truly unique workplace experience. With the immersive industry becoming more mainstream, a production like this one stands everything to gain by marketing itself in previously-untested circles.

Who knows — multiple commission-based future runs may even become part of the bargain.

— Shelley Snyder, London Curator

Hologate VR — Gravity Wandsworth
£9.95 per game; London, UK; Ongoing

I am presented with a unique experienceI entering the Hologate. My plus one has managed to contract a seasonal flu and so I must confront the virtual villains as a lone hero.

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“Is anything good for one person?” I ask at the front desk.

“You can play alone” is the not-quite answer.

Upon entering the space you are presented with VR goggles, a haptic vest that vibrates as you are shot and a rifle. I choose two games, which do claim to be one player. My first is ‘Simuri’. Here I shoot at neon alien robots that are attacking my base. I ignore the points being deducted as the back of my vest vibrates. Yes, I know there is someone shooting me. I will deal with them.

The second is ‘Zombyte 2.0’ As I am briefed for my mission I keep picking up the chatter over my headset from the pod next door. I am sure this wouldn’t be such an issue if I too was shouting commands. While I acknowledge sound bleed for the surrounding arcades is unavoidable, you should be able to be protected from other customers invading your game.

Thus I have no idea what exactly I am doing, as I listen to my next door neighbours swear at each other. I assume I am the last hope for humanity. As I always do. Soon enough the undead are attacking me as I travel on an underground train and I just keep firing.

Of course I die a lot. I am MOCKED by the game screaming that my friends will come and help me. None will save me! Do not lie! Before long all my lives are done and I am dead. The headset is removed.

Other options of games include ‘Captain Cook’, where your team collaborates in cooking food for a ship of hungry pirates, or ‘Groove Guardians’, where you compete in a dance off against your friends in a Neon world.

Afterwards I wander up and down the escalators over the three floors of Gravity Wandsworth. I see there is a range of other entertainments such as arcade games, a dedicated E-Sports room/bar, VR go-karting and also pool. Just pool. No tech. Just pool. In conclusion, the Hologate VR experience is a fun part of what I am sure could be a very exciting time if you were visiting with a party of friends.

— Thomas Jancis, London Correspondent

Stranger Things Experience (Los Angeles)
$49; Montebello, CA; Through Feb. 19, 2023

Before we get started let me admit: I didn’t think they were going to pull this off, let alone basically create the missing link between a theme park attraction and immersive theatre. Yet that’s exactly what Netflix, Fever, and their creative collaborators have done with the Stranger Things Experience, currently on tour in LA, London, and soon to be in Atlanta.

We’ve talked about the show before, but I took advantage of the opportunity to see the LA stand to witness it with my own eyes. What I found surprised and delighted me, even if I never fully found myself swept up in the “reality” of the show.

The event plays out like a missing episode of the series, with the core of the Hawkins gang running a recuse mission in the resurrected Lab so central to the first couple of seasons. The characters are played by their original actors (thanks to some clever video screen use, amongst other tricks), and the writing is spot on. (If you don’t want your kids to hear profanity, don’t bring the little f… friends.) They’re doing this at the same time that we, the audience, have been assembled for a “sleep study” that is clearly cover for the Lab’s continued search for folks with paranormal abilities.

How this is accomplished is the neat part, with the whole of the flow essentially being a theme park dark ride, but one where your feet are the ride vehicle. There’s a fair amount of emphasis on the spectacle of it all, with our participation being mostly limited to playing along. The catch being that if you play along earnestly enough the special effects laden show will pay off in ways larger and small throughout.

Which, honestly, is incredibly fun. The creative team has paced the reveals and escalation of the story smartly, using each set piece to create more buy-in and greater suspension of disbelief so that so long as you hold on to the through line, you’re going to end up having a sense of getting to graze up against the edge of the Stranger Things universe, even if you’re not entirely there.

For those of us who grew up wishing that the line to Star Tours was more interactive this answers the question with a resounding: “pretty bitchin’, man.”

— Noah Nelson, Publisher & Podcast Host

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