‘The Fleecing’ is Upon Us, and This Time It’s Digital (Review)

(Minor spoilers follow.)

The Fleecing is a honey-fingered Sunday-dumpling of delight for square pegs everywhere. Milky-eyed Monday-fish (I’m talking to you, Nick Gillette) need not apply. But everyone else who finds Almanac Dance Circus Theatre’s “Super Secret Sacred Sanctum” (aka Zoom) is in for something really strange and really, really wonderful.

Welcome to the world of The Fleecing, where secret orders must winnow out the weak and ANTRAWLFA lurks around every corner. You’re an acolyte of the Order of Mammon, here to pass judgment on devotees as they vie to become a bodily host for this iteration of the mysterious and terrible Bumblefish. An 8-eyed Abacus Bearer is around somewhere if you need help, but maybe try to avoid the Adjudicant. Something about her makes me nervous. Anyway, I’m heading over to watch the Mystics throw cards at a record player with their feet. All caught up? Great!

If that didn’t sound like anything to you, don’t worry. The Fleecing is full of language that references a deep (and nonexistent) history. To casual attendees, The Fleecing might look like a night of circus acts and performance pieces; you really don’t need to understand the backstory to have a good time. But those who dig deeper won’t be disappointed. Every bit of banter, every link, every “about us” page offers up new doors that beg to be opened, and none of those doors lead to dead ends. Over the course of an hour and a half, I found cocktail recipes, emailed secrets to my bartender, got matched on an in-universe dating platform, had my tarot cards read, and joined an underground anti-capitalist group of reporters that was somehow attached to Senator Jon Ossoff. Most of this had nothing to do with The Fleecing’s core story, but all of it added to my experience.

“We are so delighted for you to join us for this year’s Fleecing! Thanks to new technology, we have found a way to transcode your soul essence via The Order of Mammon’s proprietary software, allowing our rituals to take place inside the Super Secret Sacred Sanctum, just as they would in real physical time and space.”

Acolytes begin their Fleecing journey on a page that displays a countdown to showtime, instructions for how to use the “Super Secret Sacred Sanctum,” and a few links that hint at sinister sub-plots (if you’re into that kind of thing). Once the show kicks off, a few larger-than-life characters come in to give us the lay of the land. Yes, instructions are given in-character, but they’re clear as a bell and they set the right tone. “Okay, first rule: choose a realm!” yells our favorite mid-level manager, the Adjudicant. Split-seconds later her Abacus Bearer leans towards the camera and whispers directly to us, “You’re gonna get a link. You’re gonna do great, babies.” Is he patronizing us? Yes. Is he giving us useful information in a format I very much appreciate? Also yes.

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Right away it’s obvious that the audience will be given everything we might need to navigate this new world. Almanac Dance Circus Theatre (founded in 2013 by Nick Gillette, Ben Grinberg, and Adam Kerbel) have worked with Die-Cast and Cirque de Nuit to produce a beautifully balanced remote show which honors both audience exploration and makes space for each and every performer to shine. The Fleecing, which debuted live in Philadelphia six years ago, has found new life as a virtual show that draws heavily on the experience of in-person theatre. I suspect this had something to do with the sheer number of people involved, but at no point did I enter a room where I wasn’t either welcomed by name or given a clear idea about what to do or where to go next. Remarkably, I never languished and I never felt like I was being railroaded into taking specific action. This speaks to Almanac Dance Circus Theatre et al.’s excellent ability to set expectations up front. I was well aware of my parameters as an audience member and I never worried that my choices might break the experience for somebody else.

Clarity of expectation, combined with some really clever redundancy built into the site’s navigation, made it easy to toggle between exploration, puzzle-solving, and art appreciation without feeling like you were missing anything critical. The Fleecing mastered something that I haven’t seen done anywhere else: it created a remote theatre experience that felt fully immersive, deeply textured, and completely open, all while centering a tight narrative that works whether or not you catch all of its nuance. I really liked this show. A puzzle-loving friend of mine shared a slightly different experience. They left feeling frustrated after failing to get a response from one of the characters that had been involved in the show’s subplot. Talking through our notes a few nights later, we both came to the same conclusion: The Fleecing isn’t a game that’s meant to be won, so you’re going to be a lot happier if you go into the night sans expectation.

It’s been a week since my own Fleecing, and the experience has yet to fade. The performance struck a very human chord that has always resonated for me: it celebrates the beauty of the absurd, while making it clear that everything is absurd — and therefore beautiful — in its own way. In fact, the show wove themes of death, money, and privilege so deftly into its comedy that I momentarily forgot how large those specters loom in real life. There are a handful of moralistic reveals throughout the night that ask audience members to question the choices we’ve made along the way, but those moments never felt like jokes being made at our expense.

Instead, there’s a generosity to The Fleecing that invites everyone to find and connect with their chosen flock. Are you a Freak or a Mystic? A Daemon or an Evangelical? You don’t have to decide right away. Embrace curiosity and — no matter what else happens — you’ll find a world filled with both the ridiculous and the divine.

The Fleecing (2021) has concluded.

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