My Hecate Encounter

Zhauna Franks -- from the official SNM web site

My Hecate Encounter

The second time I saw SLEEP NO MORE, I received my first 1:1 encounter.  It was with Andrea Murillo’s Nurse Shaw.  There is something indescribably extraordinary about your first one. It’s sort of like the first time you fall in love – it’s unexpected, it’s frightening, it’s euphoric, and feels overwhelming in myriad terrible and magnificent ways.  It tantalizes in the moment, and causes angst in the loss.

The next time I saw SLEEP NO MORE, I actually went looking for a 1:1 encounter with a guy this time.  I will always be a little in love with Andrea Murillo (or Nurse Shaw or maybe both)—she gave this somewhat jaded spectator my first satisfying “fourth wall” IMPLOSION experience.  And I excitedly wondered what it would feel like to fall in love for just an electrifying theatrical moment with a young, handsome, hard-bodied fellow.  Well, the guys weren’t biting that night, or they weren’t biting me.  But rather than put the blame on myself, I ‘sour grapes-edly’ dismissed it as their personal proclivities dictating spectator choice as they all seemed to be picking other guys for their 1:1s.

I wandered down into the rep bar, where nothing was happening at the moment.  No one else was there, and I availed myself of the opportunity to admire details – set details, lighting details.  I even looked for glow-tape (a theater staple to combat the dangers of darkness on- and back stage), which I didn’t find.  (These actors must have ‘night vision’ contacts or something!) Having soaked up the ambiance, I was on my way out just as Hecate was emerging from a locked room in the corridor.  She immediately made eye contact, scaring the hell out of me again.  I thought I was going to be chastised for examining set pieces closely to see how the witches stayed safe standing on a cabaret table in the dark, with strobe and laser lights to disorient them.  She didn’t chastise.  She told me to wait there, because she had something for me.

I then realized that I had stumbled on what was to be my second 1:1.  Granted, it was another girl, but hey.  Nothing unpleasant about that, and she had an inviting smile and gentle eyes.  I decided to trust her and let her take command. I didn’t even mind when she took my mask off as I knew it was coming this time.  And when it was off and she was looking at me, I felt a kinship, almost like greeting an old friend.  Again, I will not say what exactly happened in the encounter.  I will say it was ‘narrative’ (which my first had not been) with physical elements.

What I want to talk about most is something I don’t know if I can truly explicate with words.  I will try. There is a critical theory called Reader-Response, which basically states that it really doesn’t matter what the author(s) of a work intended, it’s what the reader takes from it that is important.  And the ‘reader’ will draw insight from a text according to their own experiences.  The reaction I had to my 1:1 with Hecate, played that night by the beautiful Zhauna Franks, can only be described in terms of Reader-Response.

I came to NY and SLEEP NO MORE at a time when I was extremely vulnerable and low emotionally and psychologically. Some terrible things had happened to me recently, and I was taking them very hard.  I tend toward melancholia anyway, so when real tragedy strikes, I feel its sting more than I think a lot of people do, and it is very difficult for me to climb out of the chasm I get lost in.  Loved ones expressed concern and offered help, but I could not stop despairing.  I did not want to go to NY, though the tickets were already purchased and I had a traveling companion who would have to go without me if I didn’t make the trip.  I just felt too down to go somewhere I was supposed to enjoy, too hurt, too guilty about my culpability in what happened, too hopeless….  Ultimately, my super-ego intervened and pointed out that I had a duty, and that SNM was something that I had really wanted to do before sadness struck, so I girded my loins with my big girl knickers, and I went, still carrying the burden of grief and sorrow heavily on my shoulders.

My reaction to my Hecate 1:1 has absolutely nothing to do with the dialogue author’s intent, and is not connected to the SNM stories in any way.  But the almost maternal touch of the actress and imagery from her monologue penetrated deeply. There was much more to the story she told, and I may not even be getting these details correct.  They are what I absorbed and remember though :

·         Tears. Enough to fill a bottle. Tasting salty tears.  That had profound resonance for me as I had cried and tasted a lot of tears in recent days.

·         A boy, frightened and lost in a forest. He just went deeper and deeper in, and he could not seem to find his way out no matter how he tried. Also weightily relevant for me as I was feeling under water and unable to reach the surface.

There is more I cannot share because you would not understand, but I know the perfect timing which allowed me to hit both Hecate and this 1:1 was not an accident.  It was divine intervention, and a reminder that I was watched over.  I was utterly blown away.    Suffice it to say, that not only did the encounter touch nerves, it soothed them. I had a catharsis of Aristotlean proportions.  My experience was a kind of Holy Theater, and something very sacred to me.  I felt burdens lift for reasons I couldn’t fully fathom but have contemplated mightily since.  I realized all of humanity suffers sometimes, and I realized that some of the ways we get through it are by making and experiencing art, by lightening each others burdens, by touch and holding hands and embracing one another, even a stranger.  As with first love, my first 1:1 was intense, provocative, and wonderful.  My second 1:1, however, as with more mature love, touched my soul and continues to help in a much needed healing process.  

I had a chance to talk to Zhauna out of makeup, costume and character after the show.  A lovely human being, as well as a very fine actress.  She remembered me and told me that she had perceived that I was frightened, so she had nuanced the encounter to accommodate what she was getting from me.  She said it can have a different energy to it, depending on the attitude and demeanor of the spectator, but she had selected the one that seemed right for me.  How fabulously in tune she was, for frightened I was, and an emotional wreck.  But theatre helped.  New York City’s magic helped.  My patient, wonderful traveling companion helped.  SLEEP NO MORE helped.  Hecate helped.  And Zhauna Franks’ instincts and skill as a performer helped immensely!  I was so glad I missed sexy, fantasy trysts with nubile lads. They would have paled in comparison.

I want very much to go back and experience the show again, and again, and again.  I don’t know if it will run long enough for me to do that as I live Dallas.  But if/when I do go back, I don’t know that I’ll seek any more 1:1s.  I have had the absolute best.

Megan Terry, "AVB," "FFWS" and "SNM"

Production still from SNM, the ballroom

I recently found out that I am considered the 'weird stuff' director among my college students in the theatre department I chair. It is ironic, however considering where I began.

When I was in high school theatre, I happened upon a scene book with a scene from Megan Terry’s CALM DOWN MOTHER.  I was attracted to it, not because I understood or even liked it, but because it was, for lack of a better word, weird.  I enlisted a partner in crime, and we set out to prepare this scene for our next assignment in acting class.  We explored, we experimented, we did things that were fun, we did things that didn’t even make sense to us, but we rationalized to ourselves that the teacher and our classmates couldn’t criticize because we were making genuine ART.  Who were they to presume they could fathom, much less attack, the humblest offering of our most creative souls? 

Well, as you could guess, it was not well-received.  We didn’t get a bad grade on it as we’d completed all the basics: made specific decisions in the staging, memorized all our lines, even brought props and costume bits, and were ready at the appropriated time.  But what we ended up with was a mish-mosh that no one, us included (I will admit now though I was arrogantly miffed at the time), understood or was moved by.

The lesson I took from this: weird is bad.  No one gets it, even the artists themselves.  It’s an ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ scenario where you pretend to get it so you won’t look foolish in front of others who, unbeknownst to you, are also merely pretending to get it. The artists who create it know that it has less substance than cotton candy, but they throw it out there anyway, laughing derisively and equally at those who truthfully admit confusion or distaste, and those who lie and pretentiously wax rhapsodic about it. 

My father coined a term I still giggle at today: AVB, which is an acronym for, depending on who you’re talking to, either “Ah! Very Brilliant!” or “Avant-garde Bullshit.”  I never wanted to be accused of making ‘bullshit’ instead of art again, so I spent the early years of my theatrical life avoiding what I perceived to be AVB like the proverbial plague.  The bulk of my undergraduate training was in Stanislavski-based approaches, which gave me an excellent foundation.  I don’t think any of my professors were totally comfortable with directing or even trying to teach the radical theatrical avant-garde. This further cemented my notion that ‘weird is bad.’

Fast-forward up to graduate school, where my naturalistic self was confronted by a host of professors who loved ONLY (it seemed) the avant-garde.  I balked.  I remember, as the acting professor lectured and worked with a couple class members and we watched, looking down at the notebook of a peer who sat on the floor at my feet.  She was doing her best to take copious notes that encapsulated what was happening and the reasons for it, but ultimately she gave up and wrote “FFWS” in big, capital letters.  I asked her later what FFWS stood for, and she replied, “Freakin’ Fuckin’ Weird Shit.”  I laughed, but couldn’t disagree with her.  That’s what this class was feeling like to me too, and AVB had been replaced with FFWS as my acronym of choice.

The next year in grad school, the Theatre Department somehow got a grant to host the Omaha Magic Theater, for which, ironically, Megan Terry was the playwright in residence.  I had come full circle, it seemed.  I attended a performance, and was utterly unimpressed.  I had hoped that seeing Terry’s work performed by a company who presumably understood it would open the doors of enlightenment for me.  No such luck.  It seemed just as big a miasma of disconnected elements as my high school scene from CALM DOWN, MOTHER had been.  I didn’t get it.  I didn’t get a sense that the actors did either, or that they knew how or were even really trying to communicate what they thought was important to the audience. It was just thrown out (or thrown up *wink*) there, when I needed them to throw me a line, a Rosetta stone, SOMEthing!

The only thing I enjoyed were all the lay-people (all residents of that huge art-Mecca of the world: Lubbock, Texas) who left at intermission, furious that they hadn’t seen a single rabbit come out of a hat when they’d paid good money for their Omaha MAGIC Theater tickets.  Not to castigate these Lubbock-ians too much, because I was a theatre grad student, and I would have enjoyed card tricks more too!

Then fast-forward to another graduate acting class with “Professor FFWS.”  Early in the semester, I walked him from class back to his office and told him of my discomfort with what we were doing.  I told him I was a Stanislavski Method kind of girl.  He smiled and pointed out that it wasn’t the Stanislavski ‘Method.’  There was a huge difference between what Stanislavski taught and Lee Strasberg’s ‘Method’ interpretation of it, he told me. It was the Stanislavski System, and he encouraged me to read past AN ACTOR PREPARES, which I did.  He also encouraged me not to stand on the sidelines in acting class, but to participate fully with a principle of genuine inquiry toward the exercises on a given day.

I took him up on his challenge, and I must admit that there’s ‘something to it’ with many of the things he had us do.  Emotions were, ironically, often more easily accessible and potent when you bypassed the intellect or the traditional and explored the physical.  Dancers probably already know this, but it can take actors a while to “get out of their heads” and into their bodies.  I began to see my classmates do some very compelling things, things that worked on me at a primitive and very potent level. 

I emerged from my grad school experience grateful for the chance to delve into unknown and uncomfortable things. ‘Weird’ wasn’t necessarily bad.  In fact it could be quite gripping if done well. But as I have gone about my theatrical life, I have remained primarily unimpressed with the supposedly avant-garde offerings that have come my way.  Some seek only to be ‘shocking,’ which is usually dull and quite pedestrian after the first five seconds. Some wanted desperately to be ground-breaking and profound, but they were clumsy and unremarkable in almost every respect. The creators didn’t have a clue what they were doing, what signs/significations they were (or were NOT) evoking by not making and refining their choices more deliberately, and nothing hung together.  A director might have known some of what s/he meant, but it was obvious they had not conveyed their vision sufficiently to the cast, who flopped and foundered on stage, desperately trying to please the director. And everyone was as defensive as my high school self if their offering was met with dislike.

As a lover of theatre, you know its potential power.  You make it, but you also yearn for experiences that can touch even your knowledgeable, jaded heart.  So much of it, you’ve seen done better before, and there isn’t anything that’s both unique and effective.  There are valiant efforts, and repugnantly bad ones to which you try to be charitable when your friends are involved, but ultimately you’re left kind of wanting. Still, you search, actively or passively, but you’re always looking. That’s how I came to be aware of SLEEP NO MORE.

I had expected SNM to be just another mostly unsuccessful attempt, perhaps slicker than most, at doing something different and profound.  From what I had seen on SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED, however, I had hope that they might be on to something.  I sensed a stripping away of textual over-thinking, and bold steps toward a more primal, visceral experience. 

When I saw SNM live, among other things I felt I was being both seduced and punched HARD in the gut.  I freely interfaced with the piece’s depiction of raw, feral, often not pretty but genuine human passion.  The intellect’s censors were somehow bypassed, and emotions flowed freely. I cried, I got angry, I felt violently protective, I was aroused, I was disgusted, I despaired, I was joyful. It was all somehow much more ‘real’ done this way than actual realism would have been.  It’s HYPER-realism, primal and unmistakable.  

It is the first time in my theatrical life to have experienced a totally satisfying, expertly crafted ‘weird’ thing. I have done what I consider to be good work, but never anything like this. Do I understand it? Not fully, but I am still intrigued--a week later. And when I sift, I find more and more jewels below the surface. That's 'weird' with a purpose, 'weird' with substance, 'weird' with intent, and that is VERY rare, indeed! I don't know that I can ever reach those lofty heights, but I can guarantee I will set my bar higher when I tackle 'weird' stuff. I have felt, first-hand, the magnificence of 'weird.'

My Nurse Encounter

Andrea Murillo, from the Official SNM website

My Nurse Encounter

In my first experience with the show, I mostly tried to follow the MACBETH story lines and see live the amazing things I’d see on the PBS documentary SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED.  Myriad other things were occurring, and I’d catch a glimpse as I ran by following M or the Lady.  On my 2^nd viewing, I decided to explore some of the ‘ancillary’ characters.  I was fortunate in that I was the only one in my group to be let off the elevator on a particular floor, where I came upon the character of Nurse Shaw (played by Andrea Murillo, the same girl I’d seen play ‘Sexy Witch’ the night before – I hadn’t known they did multiple roles until then) in the room with many bathtubs.  No one else was there, so I decided to be her audience.  I followed her for about 30 -40 minutes.

An aside – since I’ve been back from NY, people have asked for “details” about SLEEP NO MORE, particularly about the 1:1s, and I sort of smile and sigh.  I’ve tried in some cases to do just that, but I’ve realized that it doesn’t help them fully appreciate the show.  The true experience is in the totality of your brush with the show, not in specific details from it.  SNM is meant to be a deeply personal, unique occurrence for each spectator.  You note “details” according to your own history, understanding and predilections.  Ten of us could have seen the same thing, and we’d come away having observed details the others did not, and with different interpretations of the things we all agree on having seen.  It is like being an ‘eye-witness to a crime,’ in that though you were there and saw it, you were also disoriented, in shock, and awash with emotions related to what you were seeing, which can dramatically impact the reliability of your re-accounting of the event later.  So, I could tell you what I saw, mostly, or partly, or perhaps even wrongly – none of which would do much good. The “details” are the skeleton of the piece – essential, well-conceived/formed/executed, and beautiful on their own, granted – but the soul of the experience is in the psyche, the heart, the loins, and the guts of the viewer as they observe, interact, and process what they’re going through.  Purposefully, I will avoid “details” in my musings that aren’t directly related to my feelings and thoughts about my experience. 

Anyway, back to the nurse in the room of many bathtubs.  Basically, in a kind of hypnotic trance, she was washing? men’s pajamas, one piece at a time, in a bathtub 1/3 filled with water.  Actually, she was taking 1 dry pajama top or pant, dipping it into the water to wet the bottom, then laying it atop the water, and watching blankly as the water soaked through completely and the garment sank.  Then she would take the item out, wring it, and place it gently, methodically, and deliberately on the side of one of the other tubs in the room.  Then she’d get another top or bottom and repeat the process for an entire stack of pajamas – I don’t remember how many exactly, but a lot.  Repetitive, but fascinating nonetheless.

Why fascinating?  Her level of concentration and focus, for one.  She was obviously not ‘phoning in’ her performance, even though it was a Tuesday night, and she only had one follower.  I respect that in an actor! She was rapt in the detail of her task, she was stoic and unwavering – like a British Palace guard, like someone performing a sacred rite. The actor in me also noted that it was like a Meisner repetition exercise.  Her action seemed the same each time, BUT if that’s what you’re getting, then you’re not paying close enough attention, because it was NOT the same each time.  Once it was dramatically different -- the garment floated instead of becoming saturated and sinking.  She watched and watched and watched.  I wasn’t sure if it would help or hinder if I submerged it for her, so I watched, fascinated by how she was going to solve the problem.  So, her repetitive acts – riveting to me! 

And my reaction to my continuing to be voyeur, rather than participating in some way, was interesting to me as well.  Was it me being overly tied to the traditional separation of performer and spectator paradigm?  Would I have gone over some ‘line’ of how much the spectator is allowed to engage in the action?  You are never quite sure where that line is with this experience.  Would it have been perceived as me trying to cause the actor to break character, which was not my intention?  Would it be a kind of sacrilege to interrupt a ritual that was simultaneously numbing and enthralling the character?  I still don’t know for sure.  I wondered what previous audiences had done, if this actress was ready for someone to ‘dig in,’ if she had contingency plans for these and other possibilities I couldn’t even imagine.

Another aside: Understand too that this will not necessarily be a chronological order of what she did.  They’re just my non-linear, jostling memories.

At some point, Lady Macbeth came into the room.  The nurse led her to the bathtub with water, undressed her completely, and helped her into the tub.  She laid out a kind of robe for the Lady on the side of the dry neighboring tub, and she left the room.  I had seen the fantastic Lady M bathtub sequence the night before, so I followed the nurse – the only one in the room to do so.

At one point, while going through her pajama ceremony, she turned and vaulted gracefully through a ‘window’ in the cinderblock wall behind her.  I wondered for half a second if I could follow, or if it would be me going where spectators were not allowed, or taking paths only to be traveled by actors.  (The opening was high, narrow, and potentially dangerous for a clumsy person to try to negotiate in the near dark.) I was also reminded of the BLAZING SADDLES scene where “Lily” (Madeline Kahn) addressed a drunk cowboy with his feet propped up on the stage apron: “Are you in show business?” she asks, slyly. “No, ma’am,” the cowboy responds, and she blasts him with, “Then get your frigging feet off the stage!” and she sweeps his feet off with a swift kick.  Well, I certainly didn’t want to put my ‘frigging feet’ on their stage, but remembering what elevator guy said—Fortune Favors the Bold--I took a chance and somehow managed to get my substantial and non-limber carcass up and through the window, which lead to the maze of branches.  No one stopped me.  And I was now regretting not pushing the floating pajama pants into the water.

In the maze, she interacted with another character in an exercise of mirroring, reaching, longing.  They embraced, comforted one another. And then the nurse was on her way again, and I followed – again, the only one who did.  Over the course of the next many minutes, we went to get her nurse jacket, dropped off her nurse jacket, picked up her nurse bag, went into an office where she did cruel things to a book with a scalpel, watched as she did a primal dance atop what looked like an autopsy table, watched with her from the balcony the entirety of a scene in the banquet hall… 

As I followed I found myself feeling both the excitement the paparazzi must feel and a hair put out with her – it was a LOT of stairs we did together!  I cursed under my breath each time she headed to the stairwell, and I hoped we’d be going down or only up one flight.  Sometimes it was one flight, oftentimes not.  Sometimes it was a slow climb, and sometimes fast and frantic, but I followed regardless.  I found myself feeling strangely estrogen-y and competitive: “Window?  Heck yeah, I’ll do a window.  Is that all you got, baby?  Bring it on! ”  And as though she’d heard my silent challenge, she’d head toward a stairwell.  And then she bounded out the frigging cinder-block window AGAIN!

I mumbled a curse word, but didn’t hesitate to follow this time.  After all the running and stair climbing, though, I was a little more fumble-y than the first time, and my landing was a bit shaky.  I REALLY hoped she wouldn’t go out the window a third time.  Still, I stayed with her.  (“Ha-HA! You’re not shaking me, sister!”)  In the branch maze, she interacted with the woman there again, kind of tenderly this time, as a child needing comfort. She was rocked, her hair was brushed.  She brought the character there the paper trinket she’d made with the scalpel and book earlier. Then she headed back into the branch maze, with me and only me in tow.  She came to a locked wrought-iron gate, and I thought she could go no further, but she quickly slipped through the bars and disappeared out a door.

Damn.  She won.

Her lithe, lean dancer body could do it easily, but my girth and boob protrusion weren’t making it through those skinny bars. Fortunately, I negotiated the maze another way and found her in the hallway soon after.  I was more humble now about our little ‘competition,’ but also totally committed, and I followed her at a jog.  Then she stopped suddenly, and I almost crashed into her back.  She turned and looked me in the eye, shocking the hell out of me.  I didn’t think they were supposed to do that!  She grabbed my forearm, and took me into a small, isolated space for my first ever 1:1 encounter.

I will not go into details about what exactly happened in the 1:1 – it’s one of those things where you really had to be there, and to describe it kind of cheapens something that was magical in the moment.  I will say it was INTENSE! 

One of the things that made it intense is, after surprising me with eye contact and once inside the room alone with her, she stripped me of my mask.  In case I hadn’t mentioned before, all spectators are required to don identical white masks.  You are told never to take your mask off while in the performance space.  It helps spectators identify who is part of the play and who is just another audience member. It provides a sort of homogenizing and ‘relegating’ of the audience, plus the anonymity can make you less self-conscious, even bold, about being voyeuristic.  No one can see your face and know that it’s you looking, watching.  There’s more comfort in the fact that actors go about their routines not acknowledging and seemingly being utterly unaware of your presence. They make deep eye-contact with one another, but never with you.

Well, in this 1:1, the character removes your mask, looks you directly in the eyes.  After feeling so untouchable the whole night, I got touched (sometimes tenderly, sometimes forcefully, and sometimes downright roughly), looked at, scrutinized, and I felt totally naked and vulnerable.  You’ve gotten used to the feeling of power, without even realizing it, because you can gaze and they can’t, and suddenly the tables are turned! They are the ones looking, penetrating, discerning, guessing your secrets, and holding all the power.  And there’s the added discomfort that you know THEY know you’ve been watching them, and you feel embarrassed for your former boldness and violation of their personal space!  And you’re disoriented, never quite knowing from breath to breath (if you remember to breathe!) if it is the character or the actor you’re dancing with.  It’s tremendously disconcerting and terrifying, but a MASSIVE psychological and emotional turn-on as well.  You become part of the play – separate from them, yet momentarily one of them. You go from strangers, to intimates, back to being strangers, all in a matter of minutes.  I am still processing, nearly a week later! 

After my 1:1, she pushed me out the door of our ‘alone room,’ and before she shut it, I instinctively extended my hand, I suppose to thank her, actor to actor and person to person, for such a wonderful adventure.  She looked at my hand and then at me uncomprehendingly, and I realized she was still in character, and perhaps there are rules about touching the actor doesn’t initiate.  Not wanting to cross the line, I put my hand to my heart instead and bowed slightly to her. I think I saw a twinkle of appreciation in her eye, though she stayed in character, and then she disappeared behind the door, shutting it firmly behind her.

I did not follow her anymore after that, though I think her cycle of activity had another 10-20 minutes to go.  I didn’t want her thinking I was stalking her.  Then I thought about how this whole adventure was meant to be a kind of exercise in ‘stalking.’  I guess the actors get used to it, even grow to like it, but you still don’t want to give anyone cause for the hairs on the back of their neck to stand up because you’re overly creepy or scary. 

It made me wonder if they have a ‘panic button’ or something similar if a 1:1 starts to go badly, and I wonder if any actor has had to press it. I noted that there is a ‘black mask’ (sort of ushers, bouncers, docents who stop unacceptable behavior and can tell you where the bathroom is) very near to any major action, including just outside the door of 1:1s.  It made me actually feel better for the actors, knowing that there was some safety built in for them.  Being an actor and a professor to kids about the age of the cast in this show, I couldn’t help thinking of those kinds of things too….  Anyway, following Andrea Murillo’s “Nurse Shaw” was a riveting, unforgettable way to spend the first cycle of my SLEEP NO MORE experience the night of Tuesday, July 23, 2013.

Exposition 3 - How could you see the same show 3 times?!

All images by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times, except cemetary statue (Scouting New York) and masked audience members (Alick Crossley/Sleep No More). from http://blog.hgtv.com/design/2011/07/21/daily-delight-the-set-of-sleep-no-more/

As I was driven home from the airport in Dallas, fresh from my SNM experience, I was asked what shows I'd seen in NY. I said I'd seen the matinee of TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL and SLEEP NO MORE three times. My questioner was sort of flabbergasted that I would have wasted three nights in NY on the same show.  I told them I would have seen it again if I could have, and that I hope it runs long enough for me to come back and see it even MORE times.

"What?!" they asked me incredulously. I tried to explain that, in actuality, I did NOT see the "same show" three times at all.   This did not help the confusion. "How?!" they demanded.  The metaphor that came to mind was that of license plates.  Given that there are 26 letters in the alphabet and numbers 0-9, if there are 6 characters on a license plate, how many combinations are possible?  I'm not a math person, so I won't even try to figure it, but let's go with the imprecise answer: LOTS.  SLEEP NO MORE is similar.  The show is conceived to offer up nearly that many combinations (or maybe more!) to spectators. 

Here's how:

•  Each spectator can (and is encouraged to) choose their own path through about 100 rooms spread over 6 floors. You can go anywhere and watch whatever interests you.  The downside is it is impossible to see everything or everyone.  Things are happening simultaneously on different floors and in different rooms, and in choosing to watch one thing, you lose out on something else.  So, if you go multiple times, you can do different things each time, making each trip a totally unique experience.
• The 'play' repeats each hour.  Each actor completes his or her cycle of activity and interaction three times a night, culminating in an 'everybody go see' sequence at the end of the final cycle. Depending on what time you arrive at the "McKittrick Hotel" and are admitted to the show, and depending on your own tastes, you can see all three cycles, or fewer. 
• You can sit in a single location and watch the activities that occur there up to 3 times.
• You are encouraged at any time you're feeling tired or confused to come down to the bar -- in which you mingle with actors-in-character as a terrific house band with torch singer plays in the cabaret-like, hazy atmosphere.  You can choose to do that or never experience that at all.
• There are multiple storylines, or arcs if you will, occurring at the same time within the same show.  You can follow one or more, but not all.
• There is the "Macbeths arc" which features radical, visceral interpretations of several significant scenes in the lives of the characters Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Those familiar with MACBETH will recognize various murders, the banquet scene, 'Out, Out, Damned Spot,' 'Screw your courage to the sticking place,' 'A little water clears us of this deed,' and many other famous scenes performed without words. Following just that makes for a very compelling evening. The trouble with doing that, however, is M and his Lady often separate, and you have to choose one or the other, and in choosing, you miss stuff.
•  There is also MacDuff's arc within the MACBETH story.  Sometimes it intersects with the Macbeths' arc, but a lot of it does not, so if you want to know what MacDuff is doing, you will miss lots of the Lady and M.  Banquo has a cycle of activity, as does Lady MacDuff, and Malcolm, and others. So, it is impossible to see even all of the MACBETH elements in a single night.
• There is a Hitchcock's REBECCA story line you can follow.  I didn't, so I can't tell you much about it.
• There are also subordinate characters with lives and activities as interesting and rich as those of any of the MACBETH folk.  They weave in and out of each other's and the main narrative (some more than others), but each one has a total arc of his or her own.  Some take you to interesting places, some are designated to watch someone else's sequence of action, so you can too even if you're following them. You can follow anyone, but again not everyone, at a given performance. 
• Additionally, there are what have come to be called one-on-ones (1:1) in which a character, usually one of the 'subordinates,' will select a spectator and take them into a space where it's just the two of you for a very intense 2-5 minute span of time. Various things occur in a 1:1, and I will not divulge my experience with the ones I've had.  Only a small percentage of spectators ever get a 1:1 at any performance, there are many characters who do 1:1 encounters and they're all different, and at least one character I know of has more than one.  Theoretically, a spectator could see the show dozens of times and still not experience all of the 1:1s to be had, if you even want to chase that aspect of the show.
• As 1:1s are just you and the actor, even though the encounter is precisely and meticulously conceived and 'blocked,' nuances can color them depending on what you're doing, what the actor observes about you, etc.  So even the same 1:1 isn't the same every time.
• And in some 1:1 encounters, the character will give you a quest -- things to go see, things to find, other characters to accost.  You could spend your entire time in the space trying to fulfill one of these quests and see almost nothing of the MACBETH or REBECCA storyline at all.
• There are also rooms and spaces that only the tiniest few ever get to see.  On occasion, it is because of the size of the room.  You have to be one of the first to get there just as a thing happens.  One preciously guarded thing is something most folk don't even know about, and it is very difficult to see it, even if you're aware it exists.
• And most members of the show's cast have more than one character they can play, and who is playing what role changes on a given night.  While choreography and action is the same for each character no matter who is playing it, a different actor playing the character will nuance the role differently.  So, even if you've seen, for example, the Lady M bathtub angst, you haven't seen it done by *her* or *this other her*.  It can be very fulfilling seeing how each actor handles their role.  And actors have different chemistry with one another as well. The energy and connection in some combinations of actors is palpable!
• There are also many "SQUIRREL" moments -- where you are watching something with rapt attention, and suddenly a light will flash down the hall, another actor will appear from around the corner, or you'll hear a scream, or you'll see spectators running in mass following...SOMEthing, and whatever you were watching suddenly seems less interesting. You, metaphorically, chase the ambulance.  You can miss a lot doing that, but you can also see moments you would have missed if you hadn't changed a kind of stagnant course. (But there's the nagging fear that it wasn't a 'stagnant' course at all, and you missed out on something wonderful by bailing too soon.)
• The set is so rich with detail, you could also spend part or a whole evening just looking at that -- most of which you are welcomed to touch, examine, and even taste or drink. Some spectators wait until the action leaves the room, and then they proceed to dig through drawers, look in cupboards, pull back sheets, hang pajamas on the clothes line, etc. Just that can make for a very interesting night.
• You can also "people watch" other spectators.  Though everyone is masked, it is fun to see body language, how people deal with their discomfort, how probably mild-mannered souls can suddenly become very dominant if someone comes up and blocks the view of the scene they're watching or they elbow another spectator out of the way to follow an actor as he bounds up a staircase or she springs through a window...
• The show is a pastiche of many carefully chosen things, any or all of which you can explore -- film references, music usage, literary allusions, religious symbols, and more
• And finally (or hardly 'finally,' but the last thing I'll talk about here), you can go do and see things you liked best in a previous viewing over and over again, if you choose.

The variety of possibilities is one of the most befuddling, intriguing, and cutting-edge things about experiencing SLEEP NO MORE.  I saw it three times, and if I had the opportunity, I would gladly go multiple times, every week, for the rest of the run.  Can't say that about any other theatrical experience I've ever had, and, as I do theatre for a living, that's, again imprecisely, LOTS! 

My Actor/Spectator Dichotomy

Masked spectators watch actress Tori Sparks in a production still from SNM

One of the lenses through which I viewed SLEEP NO MORE was that of fellow actor.

I went on stage the first time in 5th grade, and the passion/practice has continued to the present day. I studied acting in high school, college, and grad school, and I currently teach acting for a living.  I began as a Stanislavski kind of girl, still revel in Michael Shurtleff, converted to Uta Hagen, perused Stella Adler and Richard Boleslavski, and was skeptical at first but enjoy greatly dabbling in Anne Bogart, Augusto Boal, Meisner, and many others who aren't coming to mind at present. 

As I contemplated SNM, I wondered if I could do what these actors do, or if my comfort level would keep me confined to the traditional relationship between audience ("you guys stay seated and behaved over there") and the performer ("I'll be over here on the stage -- within seeing and hearing distance, but away from you.")

I tend not to like to act in 'direct audience address' scenarios.  Ironically, as 'professor' I'm totally fine, but as actor.....It's often uncomfortable for the audience (and me) to make eye contact.  For them, they came to be voyeurs, not to participate. For me, as the old saying goes "the eyes are the windows to the soul," and I don't want just any Tom, Dick, or Harry looking into mine! Plus, the spectators "don't know their lines," and you never know what they're going to do. I'm a fair improv-er, but I don't like getting caught too off guard or even risking it.  Also, on occasion they will maliciously try to OUT-do you, throw you, or grab for attention by making it all about them.  And, perhaps scariest of all, sometimes, just because you talked to or interacted with them in character, they presume some sort of intimacy in the real world too.  In SNM, given the kind of experience it is, the opportunity for negative things like these to happen for the actor increases exponentially!  I don't know that I would like it as an actor -- like it happening or even existing with the possibility that it could happen at any time.  Or maybe it would be something I'd get used to, and come to love the immediacy and 'danger' of it.

There's also the dissonance of being simultaneously the spectator and a trained actor/teacher of acting myself. Though I tried to simply be an 'audience member' -- July 22, 23, and 24, 2013 -- I couldn't help thinking like an actor.  It both enhanced and thwarted my experience.  I'll discuss the 'thwart-y' part for now.

I received two one-on-one (1:1) encounters, and in the first especially I found myself exhilarated and terrified resulting in adrenaline-induced heart racing.  I think the pressure is greater on a spectator who also understands the craft: you want to be a good audience member, you want to do what they want you to do, but you also want to experience it fully and come to the brink but not go over the seemingly ever-shifting line.

One of the joys of acting for me is connecting with an acting partner.  When you're in the moment together, trusting and vulnerable, listening with your whole being and in tune with one another, that connection is just as good as life gets! There is no feeling like it in the whole world! You can't explain it to someone who hasn't felt it, but when you do experience it -- it makes you want lots more of it!  I wondered if something like that was possible in SNM -- if there could be that magic connection in a 1:1 for both me and this present acting partner. 

The trouble is you don't know YOUR 'dialogue' or responsibility in the encounter; you don't know what will help them and what will distract; you try to be in tune but they are the only ones who know where it's going, where the 'line' is, and what is necessary to execute faithfully their role in the larger SNM narrative.  They cannot afford to get too vulnerable, so though the experience is thrilling, amazing and DAMNED intense, ultimately, while you may be an actor, in SNM your role is "spectator," not actor. 

I found it mighty difficult to separate the two, though.

Exposition 2 - What is SLEEP NO MORE?

What exactly is SLEEP NO MORE?

That is actually difficult to say.  In generalities: it is a pastiche of many familiar things (peppered liberally with unfamiliar things) combined in an evocative, absorbing, utterly unconventional way.  It is highly calculated, structured and precise, but with elements of spontaneity and surprise (for the spectators and, potentially, the actors as well!)

It is part

·   contemporary dance

·   performance art

·   theatrical drama

·   haunted house walk-thru

·   experimental/avant-garde theatre

·   Disneyland - only, metaphorically, you can get off the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' ride and walk around in the world, touching things, and actually living there for a few hours

·   Laser tag environs

·   rave

·   orgy

·   ballroom elegance and grace

·   cabaret night club(s)

·   Bacchant revel

·   a 'choose your own adventure' book

·   a film set - art deco, Golden Age of Hollywood, noir, macabre

·   the most psychotic reveries of Hitchcock, David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick

·   simultaneous nightmare, erotic fantasy, emotional catharsis, and intellectual query

·   Dante's 'Inferno' with multiple 'circles of hell' (and their inmates) to explore

·   a scientist's rat maze, only you're the rat and not the scientist

·   voyeur paradise

·   voyeur HELL, because sometimes they return your gaze!

·   religious rites/pagan rituals

·   feast of sensual arousal - there are smells, temperatures, rains/winds, things to touch and be touched by, things you can taste and eat, all in addition to the usual aural and visual senses typically employed by spectators at a play

You don't "go see this show" in any casual, conventional sense of the terminology.  You jump (or are shoved) down the proverbial rabbit hole or into the 'deep end' of the pool, and you are invited/exhorted to sink or swim.  Your experience will be unique from anyone else’s, if you follow their advice and travel the paths alone, and it can be unique each and every time you ‘go see’ SNM.  It’s largely up to you and your choices.

How’s that for specificity?  Clear as mud…. 

Macbeth and his Lady, Production still from SNM

Exposition

First, you must know some things about me: I hold a PhD in theatre, I am an actor myself, I am a theatrical director, and I am a professor and Theatre Department Chair at a 2-year college in Dallas.  SLEEP NO MORE, which I saw 3 times in NYC earlier this week, lambasted me on myriad levels and continues to rob my sleep, and I spend the wakefulness with ideas, images, and emotions dancing frantically and frenetically in my head.

How I came to even know about SLEEP NO MORE

One night, I was channel surfing and happened upon a PBS documentary called SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED, and the episode was about MACBETH.  I was about to teach a segment on Shakespearean monologues in my acting class, so I watched.

What leapt out was a brief segment about this edgy, arty thing running Off Off Broadway called SLEEP NO MORE (SNM).  My arrogant first thought: "That line is from HAMLET, not 'The Scottish Play.' Goobers didn't do their homework." (Actually, I hadn't done mine. It absolutely DOES appear in MACETH: Sleep no more, Macbeth has murdered sleep.)

I watched the featured snippets of two scenes from SNM -- the sequence where Lady M encourages/seduces/demands that Macbeth kill Duncan and take his throne, and the bathtub encounter between the husband and wife immediately after Macbeth has done the deed.  I marveled at the feral energy of the scenes -- the violent yet sensual choreography, the anguish, the lust (sexual and power-lust), the longing, the loss, the regret, and more all expressed with crystal vibrancy sans spoken words.  I was in awe.

I immediately did a Google search for the SNM show.  I wanted to go see it so badly, but it was only booking through that month, and I live in Dallas and was both teaching and acting in a show at the time.  I continued to watch the official SNM web site sporadically, pessimistic that the opportunity to go would ever arise.  I gave a student Lady M's 'Screw your courage to the sticking place...' speech.  I showed the student the SNM sequence from SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED, and she said that if I ever actually went to NY to see it, that she would love to go along.

Well, SNM extended and extended and extended, and ultimately, it was still available when I had both the time and money to go.  Accompanying me was my 'Lady M' student from the spring semester acting class (and a better partner in the experience I could not have asked for.) 

I expected to either think SNM was kind of cool, or to be utterly underwhelmed by a project seeking desperately to be barrier-breaking and profound while achieving only overly-derivative banality.  What I actually got was simultaneously caressed sensually and assaulted violently by swift kicks to the gut, the heart, the head, and the soul.

SNM is accessible on many levels -- even without an understanding of the MACBETH story or other references -- but it is a richer experience the more allusions you get.  AND it was/is absolute blissful/hellish cognitive and emotional overload for me with my film, art, acting, directing, theatre history/theory/crit, performance theory, music, and literary background. 

Simply put: In no other performance space, in my entire four-decade+ life, have I been so challenged, engaged and 'in the moment,' and emerged so full of new life, energy, hope, and thought.

In JFK airport waiting for my departing flight on Thursday, I began scribbling feverishly on a steno pad - drawing arrows, underlining, annotating - all of the things that were coming to mind regarding my SNM experience.  It continued on the plane almost all the way back to Dallas.  I paused to talk to my SNM companion and solicit some insights from her, which fed my own, and I scribbled more.  I now look at 16 handwritten pages of ideas, associations, insights, and inept attempts to describe deeply felt emotions.  Laid side by side, it sort of looks like the secret wall of paranoid, conspiracy theory BEAUTIFUL MIND guy.  (Oh, I also have two typed, single spaced pages of iPad 'notes' done in the hotel after the 2nd viewing of the show. Wow. Maybe I AM 'Beautiful Mind' gal.)

I hope to take these notes and turn them into..............something.  I'm not sure exactly what yet.  But something.  For now, this.