Review Rundown: The One With Things That Go Bump & Buzz In The Night

This week we’ve got spooky business to get down to and one for the real theatre nerds, like the one’s that have theatre degrees. Oh wait, that’s our publisher. Silly third person speaker that he is.

Let’s go.

Last week’s Rundown, The One Where Spooky Season 2022 Is In Full Effect? It’s heeeeeereeee.

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Los Angeles Haunted Hayride — 13th Floor Entertainment
$30–110, Griffith Park, LA, Through Oct. 31st

This year’s Haunted Hayride offers up three mazes, the titular Hayride, and a performance stage along with various scare actors and food trucks peppered throughout the carnival like “Midnight Falls” themed grounds of the event. Not nearly as polished as the major theme parks’ Spooky Season offerings, the Hayride and its mazes runs about half the cost of those, less if you factor in parking… you know what? Look at me talking price already.

Here’s the deal: the mazes are OK. There’s even a few inspired moments in each of them, with Midnight Mortuary probably my favorite of the bunch. Nothing mind-blowing, unless you count the strobe light that was tuned to basically blind you for a point in Laughterhouse and nearly had me stumbling over a hay bale. (Not so great, that.) Yet everything feels like it was picked out of a catalog or off a convention floor, with no real effort being made to hide the gears, wires, and strings. The scare actors ran the gamut from “quite good actually” to the “here let me shove my hand in your face” variety which for the record is less frightening than spotting someone tanked up on airport liquor boarding your plane.

A wee bit more care and feeding of the three mazes are in order, as this is LA: the land of award worthy home haunts. Now all this is mostly excusable as this is a carnival setting and the target demo is teenagers out to be rambunctious and families looking to lightly faux-traumatize their kids. Both demos deemed to be getting what they paid for and having a grand old time.

But, and you knew there was going to be a but, the Hayride itself just doesn’t seem to be even trying. What should be the star attraction is just a slow loop around a series of threadbare scenes, the structure of each is pretty much the same: either drive through a tableau where a rickety “animatronic” incomprehensibly screams at you or have two actors come out from a set and lip synch to an audio track before circling the hay filled tractor twice while growling at the folks sitting in it or threatening with weapons. It’s all formulaic and uninspired.

If you like watching your friends and random teenagers react to jump scares, go for it. Otherwise, skip it.

— Noah Nelson, Publisher & Podcast Host

Textplay — NYU Skirball
$20; Online; Through December 3

There are some experiences that you can walk into without preparation. A passing knowledge of Macbeth will enhance your understanding of Sleep No More, but regardless of how much attention you paid in high school English class, you’ll still appreciate the show. Archer Eland’s Textplay, in which a conversation between playwrights Tom Stoppard and Samuel Beckett is depicted via text message, is not the kind of show you can enter into blindly.

Upon receiving my link to the show, I was directed to a page resembling an iMessage screen, on which Stoppard’s conversation with Samuel Beckett commenced. The realistic screen, as well as seeing the characters type (and edit) on their keypad in real-time helped to set the stage. However, other details did not work in their favor. For example, despite the passage of time, the phone clock was stuck perpetually at 22:00. In addition, when deleting text, instead of selecting the entire block, Stoppard backspaced character by character, causing certain passages of the performance to drag on, especially given the number of times he changed his mind.

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The performance began playfully with an emoji charades exchange that I was able to follow. However, as someone with only a passing familiarity with the two playwrights, I quickly realized that I was not the target market; the show played out like one long inside joke that I was not privy to. Staring at a stranger’s phone is already a voyeuristic perspective, and given my lack of familiarity with the characters, I felt even more intrusive while watching their conversation unfold.

The medium depicted in Textplay is definitely unique, but unless you’re a theater aficionado, hold off on their experience, or do some pre-reading beforehand so you’re in on the joke.

– Katrina Lat, Toronto Correspondent

Unhinged Nightshade’s Curse-Winchester Mystery House
$65-$80; San Jose, CA; Through October 31

The Winchester Mansion stands as a beacon of opulence and mystery, thanks to Sarah Winchester and her correspondence with spirits who warned her that if she ever stopped building onto the house, the souls of those killed by her family’s rifles would take her. So she built. The result is as confusing as it is astounding: doors opening up to sudden drops and staircases leading to nowhere are just a couple of examples. So when I heard the Winchester Mystery House was bringing back a show similar to the one I saw in 2019, I had to make the trip.

The doors open and you are ushered into the preshow carnival, where sideshow acts and musicians welcome you to Madam Nightshades’ Spirit Show. There are cocktails and drinks in the speakeasy and axe throwing while you wait for Madam Nightshade to make her appearance. At the end of her show, the spirits are unleashed and rush into the mansion, with you shortly behind them.

Although the format has changed and it is now more of a “self-guided walking tour” similar to a maze at a theme park, the bones and the stories are still there. If you know the history of the house, and the people who frequented it, you may find yourself more entrenched in the story behind the jumpscares and special effects. The effects themselves are just as wonderful as I remember. The performers made sure that in the short time you were with them you were engaged and on edge. The excitement of walking through this intriguing mansion was only matched by the curiosity of what was around the corner or in the next room.

If you have a VIP ticket, you have the opportunity to see both sides of this haunt. That’s right, you read correctly, marketed as one, this year the show features two walk-through mazes both unique and each offering a rare opportunity to see both well-shown and hidden parts of this house. Each maze takes you through a basement, one of them necessitating a hard hat (the maze on the right in case you were wondering).

While one maze is enough to get you in the Halloween spirit, based on the opportunity to experience both sides, I would say it’s worth it. I would recommend this maze for lovers of the Winchester Mystery House, couples, or anyone else looking for fun things to do this season.

— Briana Roecks, Social Media Correspondent

The Witches of Oz–ShayShay and The Vaults.
Tickets from 20 GBP; London, UK; Through January 14, 2022

My first concern was the shoes. In an attempt to comply with the “emerald glam” dress code of ShayShay and The Vaults’ latest offering, the immersive cabaret The Witches of Oz,’ I had worn my wildly impractical, but thematic, sparkly red high heels. However, this not being my first time at an immersive show, I was worried that my somewhat tentative walk in them was going to be an issue–what if guests were expected to walk long distances, or run, or crawl? The fact that I was universally reassured the shoes would not be an issue should perhaps have been a sign.

The Witches of Oz is an immersive show in much the same sense that panto is an immersive show. This boisterous take on the “Wizard of Oz,” set twenty years after the original story with the familiar characters having figured out some things about their respective genders and orientations in the meantime, dubs the audience “munchkins,” (“maybe you are,” said my much-taller partner) and incorporates plenty of call-and-response, cheering and booing into the three-hour production with optional “Feast of Oz” dinner. However, if you go in expecting to explore a vast set, or choose your own destiny among your fellow citizens of Oz, you’re likely to be disappointed.

And yet, these complaints feel rather churlish. Because The Witches of Oz is, first and foremost, a very fun time. The actors bring energy and heart into their performances, making well-trod characters feel fresh (special props to Fizz Sinclair as Tin, whose dance moves were a standout). The soundtrack is catchy and upbeat, ranging from Adele to ABBA. For those dining in, the food, while a little slow to be served, is abundant, tasty, and accommodates all dietary restrictions. And a joyously queer cabaret take on “The Wizard of Oz” makes so much thematic sense I’m frankly shocked I haven’t seen it done before.

Is The Witches of Oz what I was expecting from an immersive cabaret? No. But would I follow its yellow brick road again, knowing what I know? For sure.

–Ellery Weil, London Correspondent

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