unpacking my adjectives
Well, life has been happening! I am thoroughly enjoying being on holiday, and seeing people and places and things. The people are definitely the best and most important - dear internet, if you sucked in every other way I would still love you for introducing me to awesome, awesome people - but also, omg did you know Boston has a LATE NIGHT COOKIE TAKE-AWAY? Warm baked cookies, available up to 3am! I am seriously ridiculously excited by that and wish my neighbourhood to acquire this service immediately.
I also dashed over to New York for a night of seeing Sleep No More with
alpheratz and it was fab. I knew going in that it was an immersive theatre thing loosely based on Macbeth where the audience wear masks and basically spend three hours wandering and following actors around as their whim takes them. And it is! But that doesn't actually describe the way it is an EXPERIENCE, that you are actually walking, or sometimes running, around this massive sprawling space with people who are doing their thing RIGHT THERE. I mean, I knew I was watching an actor, but that was also ACTUALLY a naked womam in a bath screaming, you know? I was fine, but I was glad the stewards were around to help if necessary, because it really is intense.
Like, the fact the actors are almost entirely silent actually really helps with that. It means almost all of it is expressed through movement and body language, in a way that could be weird but is actually super intense. Especially because it adds to the way you as the audience have to work out what the play 'is' for yourself - which is obviously part of the immersive theatre thing, that your experience IS the show and doesn't exist without that, but Sleep No More really ramps that up. Because you go around and choose your own experience, you are literally seeing a unique show that nobody else can ever see or interpret for you. And because there are almost no words, you can't even rely on dictionaries or whatever to be between you and the experience, either.
Also, hooooly moly the performers are good. My favourite was the woman who played the creepy housekeeper/Mrs Danvers figure, who was completely compelling to me, but everybody was just brilliant. With the possible exception of Macbeth, who was maybe not really quite as imposing or physically interesting as he should have been, everybody was just...I didn't want to take my eyes off them. And the sheer physical skill shown is phenomenal. Omg. I saw this one amazing dance fight with a door that just blew my mind, but everything was great.
And I really want to go back. I mean, I am a bit of a completist, so I always want to see everything, which is just impossible in Sleep No More - three hours in and I hadn't seen all the SETS, let alone all the characters and interactions - but I would totally love to spend more time there. And I would definitely do the 11pm show again, because just a bit fuzzy is exactly the best way to experience it, in my newbie opinion.
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/105979.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I also dashed over to New York for a night of seeing Sleep No More with
alpheratz and it was fab. I knew going in that it was an immersive theatre thing loosely based on Macbeth where the audience wear masks and basically spend three hours wandering and following actors around as their whim takes them. And it is! But that doesn't actually describe the way it is an EXPERIENCE, that you are actually walking, or sometimes running, around this massive sprawling space with people who are doing their thing RIGHT THERE. I mean, I knew I was watching an actor, but that was also ACTUALLY a naked womam in a bath screaming, you know? I was fine, but I was glad the stewards were around to help if necessary, because it really is intense.
Like, the fact the actors are almost entirely silent actually really helps with that. It means almost all of it is expressed through movement and body language, in a way that could be weird but is actually super intense. Especially because it adds to the way you as the audience have to work out what the play 'is' for yourself - which is obviously part of the immersive theatre thing, that your experience IS the show and doesn't exist without that, but Sleep No More really ramps that up. Because you go around and choose your own experience, you are literally seeing a unique show that nobody else can ever see or interpret for you. And because there are almost no words, you can't even rely on dictionaries or whatever to be between you and the experience, either.
Also, hooooly moly the performers are good. My favourite was the woman who played the creepy housekeeper/Mrs Danvers figure, who was completely compelling to me, but everybody was just brilliant. With the possible exception of Macbeth, who was maybe not really quite as imposing or physically interesting as he should have been, everybody was just...I didn't want to take my eyes off them. And the sheer physical skill shown is phenomenal. Omg. I saw this one amazing dance fight with a door that just blew my mind, but everything was great.
And I really want to go back. I mean, I am a bit of a completist, so I always want to see everything, which is just impossible in Sleep No More - three hours in and I hadn't seen all the SETS, let alone all the characters and interactions - but I would totally love to spend more time there. And I would definitely do the 11pm show again, because just a bit fuzzy is exactly the best way to experience it, in my newbie opinion.
This entry was originally posted at http://soupytwist.dreamwidth.org/105979.html. Please comment there using OpenID.