24Parkton

SLEEP NO MORE

I haven’t stopped thinking about Sleep No More since I saw/experienced it two weeks ago.  Based off Macbeth and Hitchcock’s Rebecca (though there is definitely a David Lynch influence), this immersive production transforms the abandoned Old Lincoln School in Brookline into cinematic installations and sets allowing the audience to roam freely from environment to environment.  Brought to Brookline as a co-production between Cambridge’s American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.) and Punchdrunk, a London-based troupe specializing in site-specific theatrical installations.  This is Punchdrunk’s first production to be shown in the US.

I’ve searched online through reviews and descriptions of the production, but none do it justice.  It was described to me as a “Choose your own adventure Play,” but that doesn’t really describe it either.  The closest I’ve found is A.R.T’s artistic director Diane Paulus describes the evening as “art installation meets living video game meets theater.”  I won’t try to further articulate what the experience was actually like, rather, encourage everyone to check it out from themselves.  Best 25 bucks I’ve spent all year. Running until January 3rd.

But all I could think about was this: