![]() ![]() Artists like the Ink Spots, or composer Bernard Herrmann, reinforce “Sleep No More’s” noir-ish sensibility, even if, in places, volume overload can assault the senses. Objects, many of which can be handled, are both literal and symbolic, married to a searing soundtrack evocative of the period. Meticulous in detail, right down to specific smells in places, “Sleep No More” reaches beyond the theatrical and cinematic, whose tone is firmly Hollywood Golden Age, to become a choregraphed, multi-sensory experience. Treasures that position “Sleep No More” in a liminal space between horror, memory, psychology and nostalgia. Indeed, the space itself is the real star of the “Sleep No More” experience, with treasures to be found around each darkened corner, up each dimly lit stairway, down every darkened passageway. Built loosely around Shakespeare’s Macbeth, “Sleep No More” is an immersive, site-specific experience on an unbelievably impressive scale, a visual feast staggering to behold, and a design and choreographic masterclass of the highest order.Ī tale less told than experienced, “Sleep No More” is the brainchild of Emursive, in collaboration with UK’s Punchdrunk, which sees the legendary McKittrick Hotel transformed into a dimly dark, evocative space through which the audience can freely move. And well you should, for as we all know, the only thing to do with temptation is to yield to it. Smooth and sleek, Maximilian might well tempt you to indulge in “Sleep No More,” a noir styled, immersive experience, dripping with danger, decadence, and death. Indeed, in the Manderley Bar of the McKittrick Hotel the mysterious Maximilian is said to await the pleasure of your company. White faced figures seen haunting the nooks and crannies of the McKittrick’s dark and secret spaces. Though its not at all pretentious, Sleep No More will surely pull the rug out of any pretensions you may secretly harbor about the Scottish play. Voices and music heard rushing down darkened corridors. Yet in recent years there have been rumours of ghostly sightings. Over the decades it slipped into shadow, shrouded in the mists of myth and legend, a place you might pass on the street without ever knowing it was there. ![]() Mysteriously condemned just weeks before it was due to open in 1939, its doors closed under a shroud of suspicion. Designed to be New York’s flagship hotel for luxury and decadence. The acting, production, design, and lighting left us in awe.The McKittrick Hotel. One never knew what drama might be playing out around the next corner. In our ramblings, we explored a forest, a graveyard, an infirmary, forsaken storefronts, a gloomy chapel, and much, much more. There is no right or wrong way to experience the show. 27th Street, in New York City's neighborhood of Chelsea, the building itself is foreboding, to say the least. Housed in the eccentric McKittrick Hotel at 530 W. but I will tell you this: it is brilliant. Classic jazz wafted through the hotel as if from an old-fashioned radio but with undertones of a dark synthetic drone that swelled to a discordant chorus whenever the action got particularly diabolical. The enigma that is Sleep No More can not be personified with mere words. Figures leapt and danced, cried, made love, fought, and shouted before whisking themselves off to other rooms, all while we guests gazed on, mute specters, privy to the wild passions of a bygone age. The next few hours we wandered from room to room and floor to floor bearing witness to a phantasmagoria of eerie vignettes. The scene conjured the mood of dark enchantment that would come to haunt the hotel for the rest of the night. Down on the stage below was a long white-clad table reminiscent of an infernal The Last Supper, where actors, bathed in colored lights, engaged in slow-motion revelry, taking part in many a deed without a name. The next doorway led to a mezzanine overlooking a ballroom. We proceeded turn by turn down another jagged hallway and passed a stone angel holding a candle cupped in her hands.
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