Once more into the darkness...

I think this blog still exists purely for me to post about Sleep No More. It seems to be the only thing that gets me motivated enough to write.

After a road trip in March to see the newest reincarnation of Punchdrunk's Macbeth/Hitchcock nightmare mashup, I sort of figured I was done with it. At that point, I'd seen it four times - three times in Brookline, MA, and once in NYC. I'm not foolish enough to think I'd seen everything - the way that show is put together, you could go every night for a month, and still find something new. But I'd seen a lot, had an amazing experience every time, and even gotten some spectacular solo interactions with the cast - an amazing bonus reserved for just a handful of lucky people every show. I could continue to go back and see more, explore more, but I didn't need to anymore. Plus, especially with the move to New York, it's an expensive habit to form - $80 a ticket minimum, and all the expenses that go with a weekend trip to Manhattan. I love the show, but it seemed like the end.

Then it kept getting extended. Never too far - a couple weeks further every time. I kept an eye on it, because I do love it so much, and I'm thrilled to see it doing well enough to warrant an extended run. When available tickets hit mid-to-late October, my wife and I started discussing how insane Sleep No More would be around Halloween. The show is such a creepy, surreal trip anyway, we could only imagine how over the top they would go if given the excuse.

Then the show got extended past Halloween and into November. Only odd thing was that tickets were blocked off from Wednesday 10/26 to Halloween night this coming Monday. Clearly they had something special planned, and wouldn't it be cool if we could go? But the message on the website was that those tickets were being held for VIP guests on an invitation-only basis, so we figured we were out of luck.

When the email came with our invite and promo code that would allow us to purchase tickets for that week, we barely thought about it. Our wedding anniversary had just passed, so we had a bit of extra money, and before we really discussed it too much, the tickets were bought for Thursday the 27th. We had both already gotten that week off from work - completely unrelated to Sleep No More's schedule; that was just the last week it seemed that we'd be able to get together. Everything sort of fell into place.

Two days later, I still love that show. I will admit to being... disappointed is the wrong word. The show is still incredible. I had an incredible time. I still saw things I've never seen before. The New York show seems to have grown and expanded in the last six months, and really developed past what it was in its early weeks and months. My only regret is that there were so many people.

I feel bad even saying it, because a huge part of me wants as many people to experience this as they possibly can, and also wants Punchdrunk to become a household name - if you look at some of the events they've been doing in Europe, they're moving in the direction of becoming the next Cirque du Soleil, the go-to group for truly fantastic, off-the-wall experiences. But all four previous trips into Sleep No More, across two cities, I always found moments of quiet. Moments where I was alone in the set, able to carefully examine a document, or watch the minutiae of a character's business. There were times when I would be the only person to witness a small scene between characters, because the rest of the audience were having their own adventure elsewhere. There's something truly special about that. And that was much harder this time around. It seemed like there was always a crowd to fight through to see a pivotal scene, or too many people to dodge when the character you're following suddenly breaks into a sprint. It just seemed crowded. Oftentimes, when I came across anything involving a major character, there would already be such a crowd gathered that I would just head off in another direction - there's no way I could get close enough to see anything anyway. I don't know if this was the standard amount of people that attend every night, or if they boosted their capacity for the Halloween week, but it certainly seemed like more people in the space than there had been before. Maybe in March, we just got in before New York figured out what a gem they had in their city.

Again, there's almost shame attached to this. I feel like an idiot who complains when their favorite indie band hits it big - like it's no longer fun when everyone else likes them. I still want everyone who is even remotely interested in this sort of thing to go check out the show, because it's absolutely worth it. My only hedge now is that I might recommend checking them out on a weekday night. It's a bit cheaper (not that the show isn't worth the more expensive weekend tickets), and there may be less of a crowd with you.

I will say this about their Halloween extravaganza - Sleep No More and Punchdrunk can throw one hell of a party. If you happen to have tickets to any of the Halloween week shows (only three left at the time of this post), you're in for a treat, though a pricey one if you're looking for some liquid motivation. The party in the ballroom was a lot of fun, though not quite my scene. I do wish they had made it clear that other parts of the set would be open for less raucous celebration - my group might have stayed a bit longer had that been the case. But if you're looking for an amazing night out in one of the cooler places you'll ever get to party, it's worth it.

Once again, I feel like I'm good with Sleep No More. I've been scouring the internet for months for more news on "Punchdrunk Travel," their next project that was rumored to kick off in September, but I've never found more news. I'm ready for the next thing, and I think I'm cool with not seeing Sleep No More again. Yesterday, I saw a note on Twitter that they had extended to December 30th, with the 31st listed, but not available. I bet they'll throw one hell of a New Year's Eve party.

And if I were to get an invite, I might just change my mind...

Johnny Baseball

American Repertory Theatre, Cambridge, MA

6/2/10

I didn’t hate it until really close to the end. So I guess that’s saying something.

Let’s get one thing really, really clear first. I am the polar opposite of the target audience for this show. I don’t like musicals. Big strike one there. I’m also a pretty serious Red Sox fan – I’d wager that I know the history better than the average fan, which puts ART in jeopardy of pissing me off if they get too cute with the artistic license. So I had a sneaking suspicion I was going to be cranky when the final curtain fell on this one.

So the fact that the first four-fifths of this was mostly inoffensive to me is fairly high praise, considering the circumstances, even if I ended up walking out with an awful taste in my mouth thanks to the last 20 or 25 minutes.

Another caveat – before I go on the inevitable rant about what I hated so thoroughly near the end, I want to stress that I think the vast majority of people who would even consider going to this would probably get a kick out of it. The music is more fun than not, all of the performances were strong (more on that later), the production elements are really nicely designed and put together really well. 100% of my issues with the show fall in the lap of the writers, and not any of the other countless artists and staff involved in the production. I firmly believe that there are a lot of people who will connect with this show in a different way than I did, not be bothered at all by it, and have a wonderful time. In fact, that’s definitely the impression I got from some other guests at the post-show opening night gala.

But where theatre is an entirely subjective experience, I can’t speak for those who had a pleasant time from open to close. I can only speak for me, and talk about my experience. And my experience as a historically-informed Red Sox fan found a script that slowly deteriorated over the course of two hours until finally, in two connected moments, it spat on the long, storied, damn-near-mythologized history of this team. A history that is revered by the team’s fans and some of its players, current and from years past. A history that has undoubtedly made a red “B” in blue trim one of the most recognizable entertainment symbols from the past century. All I could think about as I walked out of ART last night was that the writers of Johnny Baseball, one a member of Red Sox Nation himself, had no respect for the team, its fans, or the specific players who gave us the most exciting, rewarding sports moment of the last 90 years.

Johnny Baseball follows Johnny O’Brien (Colin Donnell), an orphaned rookie pitcher with a helluva fastball who works his way up to the Boston Red Sox during Babe Ruth’s (Burke Moses) final season with the team in 1919. Ruth takes the fellow orphan under his wing, and introduces him to Daisy Wyatt (Stephanie Umoh), a young African-American jazz singer just finding her way in Boston. Sparks fly, of course, and as Johnny’s career takes off and his romance with Daisy deepens, the two of them must confront the realities of race relations in the early 20^th century.

Their story is told through an old African-American man, who is sharing it with a young Red Sox fan. They also happen to be sitting in the Fenway Park bleachers during Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees. Eventually, the stories merge, and the audience sees a what-if scenario of the progression of the fabled Curse of the Bambino.

According to ART’s website, Johnny Baseball “traces the origin of the Curse to a collision of three orphaned souls… these three lives contain both the reason for the Curse and the secret to its end of the bat of Big Papi in 2004.” When you’re dealing with a mythos like the Curse of the Bambino, of course everyone is entitled to their opinion. But I have a very hard time swallowing that opinion when it relies on a very selective list of conceits that don’t really jibe with the legitimate history of the Red Sox. Without going into any details of the surprises and reveals throughout the play, the authors (Richard Dresser, Robert Reale & Willie Reale) sort of mangle some of the important aspects of the story. Their curse starts – and it has a very clear, active “start” – in 1948. But if you’re really going to play with this particular story, and you decide to bump the generally accepted start date of The Curse by nearly 30 years, you damn sure better give a good reason why the Red Sox, the greatest team in the first 15 years of the modern era (1903-1918), failed miserably for the next thirty years… and then got cursed. Why should I believe that 1948-2004 was a vindictive (if not undeserved) curse placed on the team, but 1919-1947 was just really bad management? To me, that just seems sloppy.

I’m also not at all pleased with the implication of how the curse was lifted. The writers drops two clear, contrived and cheesy instances of deus ex machina onto the end of the play – watching the otherwise-beautiful lighting and set flicker and flash as the hex was placed made me want to scream – and instead of being at all enlightening, or even all that interestingSox Nation finally got satisfaction after 86 years of heartbreak because one selfish bastard decided he’d punished people enough, and recanted his curse at the perfectly convenient moment.

The issue is that in the same two hours that the play is touting baseball’s place in American history, it’s also implying that the game itself has no actual impact or importance on its own – it’s merely a social mirror to what’s going on in the country as a whole, vulnerable to the whims of those involved in it. It’s a very contradictory when compared with the group sitting in the bleachers, watching this infamous game, and all of the stock they’re placing on it. In one song, they all plead with God for “One More Run,” because that’s clearly something important enough to them to make such a high request. In another, “Do or Die,” a couple’s entire relationship is dependent on the outcome of Boston’s season. Do these two contradictory messages really belong in the same show? If the point is to show the pointlessness of fans placing such importance on inconsequential games, then sure. But that’s not very generous to the fans you’re likely trying to lure into the theater to watch the show.

Of course those are overblown examples – of course they are, this is musical theatre. But you’ve got one hand setting up the sanctity and importance of baseball and this team for so many people over many generations, while at the same time the other hand is showing just how meaningless the entire sport is – the 2004 team, heroes to unexaggerated millions,  don’t even factor in. They were just in the right place at the right time.

Talking with my fiancée after the show, she was a little amused (but not at all surprised) by my fury, and came up with a pretty good reason why I was mad. “It’s blasphemy!” she said. And that’s partially right. I am pretty well wrapped up in this team, and the ups and downs of their seasons, and have been for the better part of 15 years (I know, I’m a rookie compared to some of the long-suffering fans. That’s still three-fifths of my lifetime, so cut me a little slack). So to have someone twist this mythology in this way certainly pisses me off on a personal level, but that’s not the bulk of it. Being angry about blasphemy is being angry because someone disagrees and has the gall to talk about it in front of you. Much more than that, I’m angry because in writing what was disguised as a love letter to the game, these guys ended up disrespecting it, disrespecting the Boston Red Sox, specifically the 2004 team, and every player who made that historic World Series title possible. And that’s infuriating to me.

Dismissing the accomplishments of that team as a happy coincidence completely undermines the game and the place that baseball or any other athletic competition holds in our society. Admittedly, that place might be a little higher than it ought to be at times (BEAT LA!), but this is a Trojan horse into the minds of the fans who revel in those sports and pastimes.

I don’t want to end this on that sour a note, so let me just say that until the writing took that very unfortunate turn, I was fairly amused for the first good chunk of the play. First off, the set is gorgeous, featuring a very versatile set of Fenway bleachers, set on casters and able to be rearranged into different configurations. It allows for a nice variety of levels and dimensions without getting repetitive, even though you spend a good amount of time looking at different ballparks. I’m also pretty sure ART rebuilt their entire deck and stage to accommodate the show, pulling out what would have been considered “orchestra” seating to create side sections, performing the show on a thrust that gives much more of a ballpark feel. Even the light grids above those sections are reminiscent of the field lights at Fenway. Nicely done. There’s also a fantastic moment when Ruth hits a home run during a game – a combination of lighting, blocking and performance that perfectly and hilariously imitates film from the time period. Pretty sure I laughed louder than anyone else in the room on that one.

The performances are quite good, as well, in particular from Johnny “Baseball” O’Brien himself. Colin Donnell finds nice moments throughout the play to highlight Johnny’s growth. He hits small-time pitcher well; his starstruck introduction to Babe Ruth is hilarious; he picks up an appropriate swagger as his stock rises, and then finds a wonderfully contrasting darkness and bitterness as an older Johnny lives out the rest of his life wondering what could have been. It’s a really nice progression that Donnell handles with ease.

I wish I could say the same about the romantic plotline, but I don’t think it’s a good thing when you view the female lead and love interest as an extraneous character. The story seemed stunted, and the actual courtship between Johnny and Daisy felt condensed into about half of the amount of time it needed to have to really carry any weight. You only see two or three meetings between the two of them, and none of them really hold the significance to generate the impact the relationship is supposed to have later in the play. I think this weakness also led to some of the less-inspired directing in the show –when given nothing significant to portray emotionally, the scenes fall flat and stretch too long, often ending up with Daisy staring off into space longingly while Johnny stares longingly at the back of her head. Elsewhere, Diane Paulus’s directing is sharp and fun, highlighted by a raucous scene in a Boston brothel where all ten or twelve characters onstage never run out of things to do. Despite the writing’s shortcomings, Stephanie Umoh is charming and sweet as Daisy, and her voice will blow the roof off that theater for the entire run of the show. The scenes featuring Daisy as a jazz singer, though inconsequential to the show as a whole, really do a great job featuring Umoh’s talent.

The show’s ensemble is equally strong, with standouts in Burke Moses, who spends most of his onstage time playing Babe Ruth, and Jeff Brooks, who plays a collection of older characters including early Sox catcher Wally Schang and controversial (yet legendary) Sox owner Tom Yawkey. An honorable mention also goes to Alan H. Green, whose short turn as a certain legendary player produces a lot of laughs and the best song of the show. The modern-day crowd scenes portray some unwelcome but not uncommon (and, admittedly, not entirely untrue) stereotypes about Boston fans, but they also produce some of the most enjoyable songs in the show. The opening number “Eighty-Six Years” is catchy, goofy fun, and also lays out the history for those who might not be intimately familiar with it.

I’ll say it again: there’s a lot to like here, and maybe I’m being petty by letting those two moments ruin the entire experience. But those two moments are crucial to the plot, and in my mind forces all of the show’s credibility to come crashing down. They ruined an otherwise enjoyable night at the theater for me, and one that obviously still has me fuming a day and a half later. If you don’t care as much about the history as I do – and there’s no reason you ought to – forget the entire middle section of this review and go enjoy a peppy, sweet musical with the Red Sox as a backdrop.

But you most certainly will not see me there again.

Becky Shaw @ Huntington Theatre Company

Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo

Directed by Peter DuBois

Seen Friday, 3/12 @ Huntington’s BU Theatre Mainstage

Becky Shaw is funny. In a really, really mean way. Which of course makes it worlds funnier than it would be if it were nice. This is about the least politically correct play I’ve seen in a long time, and that’s entirely to the benefit of the play. If you decide to write a mean-spirited comedy, you have two choices: you can either play the cruelty for a bit and then allow your characters some revelation that forces them to change their ways, or you can commit to it and… for lack of a better term (cause Tropic Thunder introduced the BEST EVER term), go “full retard” and keep your characters as mean-spirited as any ever written in entertainment. Gina Gionfriddo is committed, and for that, I thank her.

That’s not to say that the characters aren’t likable. Far from, actually. Walking out of the show, my fiancée and I both agreed that Max (Seth Fisher) was by far the most abhorrent character in the show, and yet we both loved him. He says awful things. By most people’s definition, he does some awful things. But he’s just like anyone else (OK, he’s just like me) except he’s got no filter. He says what he thinks, no matter who those comments might end up hurting. It may make him look like an awful person, but even that’s not exactly black and white, because he is fiercely loyal and dedicated to the Slater family, no matter what. He’s certainly not the nicest person in the world, but does he really have to be? He knows what is important to him, and fights for it. I don’t think anyone can fault him for that.

The story starts out in a New York City hotel room, where Max has brought mother and daughter Susan (Maureen Anderman) and Suzanna Slater (Keira Naughton) together to discuss the family’s finances following the passing of the family patriarch. Apparently Suzanna’s dad wasn’t quite the businessman everyone thought him to be, especially in his later years, and now the family is more or less broke. That sets up both ladies for a bit of culture shock as they need to move away from the privileged life they had previously led. Susan gets by with her new twentysomething boytoy Lester (whom we never see), while Suzanna – much more affected by her father’s death – takes comfort, at least for one night, with Max. Max is as close to being family as one can be without blood or marriage, but that doesn’t stop them from distracting themselves from the financial disaster the Slaters are facing.

Fast forward a bit, and we find Suzanna married to someone who is not Max – a sweet guy named Andrew (Eli James) that she met on a group ski trip. Four months and a quickie wedding in Vegas, and the happy couple are now living in suburban Rhode Island and just barely making ends meet. Suzanna thinks it’d be a good idea to set up Max with a girl from Andrew’s office, so a double-date is planned and Max arrives to dryly deride everything about Suzanna’s now-“pedestrian” life. Enter Andrew’s coworker, the sweet, apparently-naïve Rhode Island girl who gives the play its name. Saying Max and Becky hit it off would be… inaccurate at best, but they end up heading out on their own for what turns out to be the worst. First date. Ever. From there, we get to watch as friendships, marriages and all thresholds of sanity are tested in every which way, and along the way no one is spared from being the butt of a brutal joke.

And it works so well. The jokes, particularly the ones at Becky’s expense, are well-executed and perfectly timed (and, by the end, REALLY well-deserved). In fact, the cast as a whole has a really good rhythm going. Max and Suzanna in particular work exceedingly well together. There’s a perfect mix of familial, platonic love and blatant attraction, and the history there is made clear enough from the beginning of the show that the combination never tips into creepy territory. These are best friends who will always be best friends, but even that can’t stop Max from displaying his clear adoration of Suzanna. He’s protective of her and her family to a fault, especially where it concerns her husband, but that’s a shield that doesn’t apply to him. He will often dump all over Suzanna and her decisions, always in hilarious fashion. Fisher and Naughton hit their marks just right and sell everything about their relationship with a tone that allows the audience to appreciate and relate to that particular brand of love, even as Max says something awful about Suzanna’s life choices. Though it may not seem so at first, this story is about the two of them and how they grew up together, with the ultimate lesson being that sometimes you need to make a tough choice in order to point your life in the right direction, even if that direction moves you into territory that isn’t as comfortable or as safe as the way you’ve lived in the past.

The rest of the cast is equally fun. Anderman doesn’t get nearly as much stage time as the others, but she makes every moment worthwhile, particularly when discussing her late husband and his alleged indiscretions. It’s a brutal take on a high-society woman who took a tough fall but has thus far refused to acknowledge it ever happened. In parts she reminded me of Martha Rodgers on ABC’s “Castle,” which is a good thing – just the right mixture of upper-class grace (even if the legitimacy is questionable) and a biting tongue that spares no one in her life. James’s Andrew initially comes off as the weakest of the bunch, but you quickly learn that it’s not an issue of performance, but the result of a deeply flawed and naïve character who’s wishy-washy because he doesn’t really have any idea what he wants in life. For better or worse, he’s stuck with Suzanna, and we get to watch him work out if that’s really what is best for him in the long run.

And then there’s Becky Shaw. She doesn’t really come into her own and show all the cards in her hand until into the second act, when she meets up with Max for the first time since their disastrous date – a meeting that she seems to need, but Max wants absolutely no part of. Wendy Hoopes puts Becky through a transformation so brilliant, so devious and so… mean that for the first couple minutes it seems out of character, only because her persona in the first act was so beautifully sincere and believable. But once you figure which personality is really Becky, it makes the whole change so rewarding, and suddenly turns Becky not only into a fascinating character to watch but also into a very worthy foil for Max, and in the final scene leads to some of the most hilarious interactions I’ve seen onstage in a long time. It doesn’t matter how you look at it… one way or another there is one constant about Becky Shaw: the bitch is crazy, and the show is better because of it.

What I found interesting and unique about the script is how we come to realize Becky is nuts. On face value, the show isn’t all that unique – it’s a couple different standard “slice of life” stories wrapped into one package – but the presentation is the difference. Where a lot of other plays of the type do most of their communication through open discussion of feelings and emotional processes, Becky Shaw says a lot more through everyday marital arguments and family quibbles. In fact, the people who are much more verbally open emotionally are at best seen as weak (Andrew) and at worst called (and proven to be) completely freakin’ insane (Becky herself). Whether or not it was Gionfriddo’s intention, the derision of a character like Becky Shaw provided me with a nice little piece of theatrical parody which made her character progression all the more enjoyable. Even independent of Becky, scattered throughout the show are a couple beginnings of emotional diatribes and stereotypic overshares that are swiftly mocked as ridiculous. Naturally, most of the mocking comes from Max, ironically the only character who could probably use a proper examining of his feelings).

The technical aspects of the show are extremely well-managed, if not groundbreaking. Peter DuBois’s directing is nice and relaxed; nothing ever felt forced or seemed to get in the way of the very conversational dialogue style the cast managed so well. The sets were nicely functional, and did well to distinguish between the personalities in the show (see Andrew & Suzanna’s Rhode Island apartment vs. Susan’s Floridian sitting room). One piece that did stand out nicely was the music choices, pretty much used only during scene changes, but the sound nicely matched the modern, urbanite style some of the characters so desperately clung to.

Ultimately, though, the show is held together wonderfully by the cast and the writing. Gionfriddo’s got a pretty damn funny show, and on the nose delivery from the entire ensemble makes it a pleasure to watch. It’s maybe not for the faint of heart – these are “real people” who use real language (many words have four letters), which has never bothered me, but I was happy to find myself giggling along with a good portion of the audience, many who looked to me to be prime examples of the Huntington’s subscriber base (twice my age, and probably twice my income to match). Either the crowds in Boston’s traditional theater scene are loosening up a little bit, or Becky Shaw is just a damn funny show no matter who you are; I know the latter is true, but I’ll hold out some hope for the theatergoing regulars as well.

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost by Clifford Odets

Directed by Daniel Fish

Seen 3/5/10 at American Repertory Theatre, Loeb Drama Center

There’s nothing wrong with ART’s production of Paradise Lost. It hits all the points it tries to hit, and very easily draws the intended parallels between the 1930s that Clifford Odets writes about and today. It’s also not particularly difficult to imagine a family today having struggles and setbacks of the Gordons; you hear about them in every human interest story on the nightly news, or any time a politician needs a story about “Main Street.” It’s all very believable, all very timely. And all that might even work against the production, because by the time the curtain falls for the final time, it just might not be that interesting to watch anymore.

The story revolves around the Gordon family: Leo (David Chandler), who runs a handbag manufacturing business with a business partner; his wife Clara (Sally Wingert), a driven matriarch who very clearly runs the family; their older son Ben (Hale Appleman), a former Olympic runner who hasn’t really found his place post-Olympics; their daughter Pearl (Therese Plaehn), a quiet piano prodigy; and their younger son Julie (T. Ryder Smith), a financial superstar who has become sickly for reasons unknown. Coming in and out of their lives are an assortment of neighborhood characters that are vague enough to be found anywhere, but specific enough that the audience can point to any of them and say, “I know that guy!” Through three acts we watch Leo’s business spiral, Julie’s health get worse, Ben deal with an uncertain future, and Clara fight to hold everyone together and survive as a family. It’s a pretty stereotypic post-Great Depression story that has gained new relevance in light of the world's recent economic issues.

If I had to choose, I think I’d have to place blame on some design and directorial choices, and maybe on myself for believing too much hype about the director. Director Daniel Fish has a reputation for doing some crazy things, but I feel like that drive only made it about halfway through the production. The design is fairly abstract, and at face value pretty cool. One of the best elements is the use of video projected onto the backdrop behind the performers. Sometimes it’s used for atmospheric effect – the entire cast starts the show by watching the end of a movie together – but most of the time it’s used with live video to give the audience a different perspective on the stage action. That’s especially beneficial because a good deal of the action in Acts I and II take place significantly higher than the audience if you’re seated at floor level, as I was. It’s useful to get a better view of what’s going on off on stage left when the actors themselves are obscured by the dining room table. There’s a particularly good use in Act II as things start to fall apart for Leo Gordon and his business partner. Without spoiling anything, Leo’s partner introduces him to someone who can potentially “fix” their business in a particularly insidious way. The fixer is played by T. Ryder Smith, who also happens to play Leo’s son Julie, but there’s a nice negative filter used on the projected video that allows Smith to portray a much more treacherous nature that he had on his own as Julie, which furthered the distinction between the characters and added to the treacherous atmosphere of the scene.

Beyond that, though, a lot of the technical elements fell a little flat for me. At seemingly random times throughout the play, characters would pick up wireless microphones and use them for dialogue. There are some times when it was very helpful – again with the moments when you couldn’t quite see what was going on over near the wings or upstage – but many times they were used when actors were front and center, and their dialogue didn’t really strike me as needing to be accentuated in that way. It’s very possible I missed something, but it just didn’t work for me.

It also struck me as odd that Fish had all of these out of the box technical elements at work, but his staging itself was very straightforward. There are some seemingly clunky blocking decisions - characters staying onstage long after they should have left, and it isn't clear if their physical presence places them in the scene, or if they are there representing something more abstract. Again, it just doesn't quite mesh with the otherwise relatively straightforward staging. Again, there’s nothing wrong with traditional blocking combined with abstract design, but it seemed to me to draw more attention to what was out of place – the design – than it drew to the story being told. The story is very timely, so one would think you’d want the focus there. It almost seemed as if the ability of the story to draw relevant parallels was taken for granted, and so the creative focus moved elsewhere, but all it did was draw attention off the story and performances, which should have been the stars of the show.

And if you’re paying attention, there are some shining stars here. Clara Gordon, Leo’s wife, is brilliantly portrayed by Sally Wingert. Her performance is very engaging, but it’s also a credit to Odets as well; this is by all definition a modern woman in the 1930s script, something Wingert accentuates with a ferocity that no one else on stage can match. She’s got the independent, speak-her-mind attitude of a flapper out of the ‘20s mixed with an undying dedication to her family that truly convinces the audience that if anyone can keep a family together in light of all the crap thrown at the Gordons, it’s Clara.

Also of note is Karl Bury as Kewpie, Ben Gordon’s best friend who turns out to be not so good for him. Bury has a history on Showtime’s “Brotherhood” and HBO’s “The Sopranos,” both of which he channels for Kewpie’s small-time con personality. He strikes a good balance of clearly being terrible for Ben and this family, but also clearly caring about them. It’s a tough note to hit to put someone you claim as your best friend directly in harm’s way without degrading the friendship to nothing, but Bury does it well, and his guilt in the final act over what happens to Ben is a genuine as it is well-deserved.

Leo’s business partner Sam Katz (portrayed by Jonathan Epstein) and his wife Bertha (Adrianne Krstansky) also rise to distinction thanks to a particularly potent breakdown in the second act. It struck me through the first act that Sam was probably in the most “real” situation in the show, trying to keep Leo’s floundering business afloat, but once you hit the end of the second act you realize that Sam is on much more unstable footing than the Gordon family; the Katz family spiral is much more accelerated and precipitous than the Gordon family’s, and the Katz demise, while in less focus, has as strong an impact as the main story.

The rest of the cast is a little more muddled, though no one is out of place. I’m not sure if the issue lies in performance or writing. At various points throughout the play everyone is given their moment of focus, but there’s such an overwhelming malaise that hangs over the script that it takes a spectacular performance to break through that and be noticed.

The malaise is not misplaced – both the period of the setting and the modern time it alludes to deserve a melancholic attitude. And hope does fight through in the end – once again in the hands of Wingert’s Clara, who stubbornly (in a good way) INSISTS on maintaining her family’s pride, however damaged by tragedy and circumstance it might be. There’s no doubt why ART and Fish chose to preset Paradise Lost now in 2010, but some weakly-written characters and questionable design choices hold it back from being the poignant commentary it might otherwise be.

Sleep No More, Take II

Doing something I don’t think I’ve ever done with a limited-run piece of theater (thus excluding my 5 or 6 trips to see Blue Man Group), the girl and I took a second shot at ART and Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More on Tuesday. Again, I’ll try not to give anything away…

Second time around was definitely different from the first, and that’s both good and… less good, though I wouldn’t go so far as to say bad. We had heard that there had been some changes since we saw it the first time (which was during previews), not the least of which were some cast changes. Some of the original British cast members were moving onto other things, so they were being replaced by new recruits. It’s always interesting to see the differences in a role when played by different people, especially something like this that is so interpretive and subjective to begin with.

But we’d also heard that some scenes had been reworked, so we were interested – not that we’d know, since there was no way we had seen everything the first time around. So we picked up some tickets and headed over for the earliest entry time, to give ourselves as much time to explore as possible.

By now, it’s well known that the experience starts in the Manderlay, a reconstructed speakeasy in the middle of the school. This is still the best possible intro, because even in what can sort of be considered a “lobby,” the experience is immersive and totally convincing. We headed in, and this time the two of us purposefully split up the minute we donned our masks, also parting ways with a couple of friends that we had run into on the way to the school. I ended up taking a different entry point to the show than I had last time. And away we went!

The first thing I noticed was that the anticipation I had felt last time was still there, but this time around I wasn’t tentative at all. I dove in head first, and I think I inadvertently set the tone for some of the other people in the room with me. Like I was the first time, they seemed reluctant to touch anything, and kept a pretty safe distance from the lone actor in the room. Meanwhile, I was flipping through books, searching through letters on the counter, and watching the performer from a much shorter distance than the rest of the group. I noticed a lot of people doing the same shortly after I had, so in my own small way I hope I encouraged people to involve themselves as much as they could from the very beginning.

I definitely felt more free to go wherever I pleased, in part because of all the emotions the scenes still send through you, fear wasn’t one of them this time (safe, horror-movie fear, not actual fear). I felt comfortable from the outset this time, and I was much more ready for anything and everything. It let me seek out the dark corners, and be much more willing to meet the actors and the mood halfway. I got there last time, but I think I got a full 3 hours of experience this time, where last time it might have been closer to two.

And experience I did. In all, I think I saw three or four scenes that I had seen before, but even those I was able to explore from a new perspective, and see how the new additions to the cast handled the events. I also took many different turns in order to see as much new as I could, and it was well worth it. I’m shocked that a piece of theater can have this much replay value, but I definitely can see myself going back again. I’ve got a friend who would love it, so I want to go and see her reactions first-hand. It was also interesting to meet back up with my friends in the bar after, one of whom was there for her first time. It’s always cool to be reminded of those more visceral, first-exposure reactions when you’ve been removed from them for a month or so.

What truly amazed me this time around was that there were still so many scenes that are so well-played, so perfectly executed, that they still really got under my skin. There’s an ending to the last cycle that I had missed the first time – it’s either new, or we missed it in previews because the fire alarm went off halfway through the night – that is so perfectly done that it elicited a gasp from the entire crowd – and most of that night’s guests were gathered in the room at the time. Also intriguing looking back is what I didn’t see – there were rooms I remembered from the first trip that I never happened upon this time, through no choice of my own… my journey just didn’t lead there this time.

If you haven’t seen it yet, go. If you have seen it, go back, especially now that you’ve got an idea what you’re in for. The show and the cast will still find new ways to surprise you.

You need to see this.

Last night, my mind was blown.

I've got a degree in theater, and I think by most standards for the industry, I'm a bad theater student. Frankly, I don't like weird stuff. Most of the time, it's not because I don't get it. Very often, I get the point that is trying to be conveyed through unconventional means of presentation, but very seldom do I ever feel that the point is made more effectively than it could have been made in a more straightforward production. Being weird for the sake of weirdness has always annoyed me, because it seems selfish. It doesn't seem to me to be done for the benefit of the audience. It's done for the benefit of the performers or the artists who are putting the show together. And that's fine, but if that's the case... why are you making me pay to see it?

What I saw last night completely redefined what I thought of as theater. It's not something that will ever replace conventional theater, but I think it could do more for the idea of the theatrical experience than anything else I've ever seen.

It's called Sleep No More. It's been brought to Boston (Brookline, actually) by the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, but the project belongs to Punchdrunk, a theater group out of London. They first performed the show in London in 2003, and the run in Brookline marks Punchdrunk's American debut. And they certainly have me interested.

Sleep No More is a reimagining of Macbeth as a Hitchcockian thriller. For this production, they've taken over the old Lincoln School on Boylston Street in Brookline, and transformed it into... something else. I want to be very careful how I phrase things, because the best way to walk into that building is knowing nothing at all. Their new setting is reminiscent of the '20s or '30s. You start your experience in a small but beautifully appointed speakeasy that was dropped in the middle of the building. From there, you don a mask (which I think is for the comfort of both the performers and the audience), and are let loose to explore the hallways and nearly fifty transformed rooms over four levels of the school.

Some of the rooms are appointed in a pretty standard theatrical fashion - sitting rooms, dining rooms, offices - while others are much more imaginative - on one floor, there's a dune of black sand that makes its way through three or four rooms. In some rooms, there's little done to hide the fact that this used to be a school, even if that room's design doesn't fit a school at all. Other rooms, especially in the basement, are fully transformed into something else... anything else.

As you wander through the rooms, you'll encounter characters who are at the very least reminiscent of the characters from Macbeth, if not the characters by name. They'll go about their days, usually completely unaware of you and your fellow audience members, interacting with each other as if you didn't exist. My girlfriend described the feeling as being ghosts, with free reign to travel wherever you see fit and observe anything (and I do mean anything) and everything these characters do. One really cool way to experience the show is to pick a character and follow them. Everywhere. At no point did anyone go where the audience couldn't follow, so you really get a complete, unbroken experience. And if you pass a room or another character that looks more interesting, just break off and explore that room, or follow that new character. The actors are on a cycle that repeats at least once over the course of the night, so if you think you missed something after you stopped following someone, you can always try to pick it back up again later.

There's very minimal dialogue in the show, and that's for the better, I think. The actions, movements and relationships might become a little too defined if the characters were allowed to speak out loud, and the show would lose a very surreal, ethereal quality that helps make it so fascinating. It also means that when characters do talk, it's that much more important, and you need to pay close attention.

The one thing that I was worried about for this format was how well I would be able to follow the plot. You really have no restrictions on where you can go - if you can open a door in the school, its part of the show and you're welcome to explore. It does make for a very disjointed connection with the plot, but in the end I found that really didn't matter. There's a quote from a review in the Guardian newspaper of the London production: "... although you will need more than a passing knowledge of the play to make the connections, I suspect that the experience is sufficiently novel that, even if you had never heard of the play, you would take a puzzled pleasure in the evening." The performers are strong enough that you'll feel the full intensity of emotion just by watching and, if you're lucky, interacting with them. And those emotions will run the full gamut of possibility. The venue and scenes are constructed in such a way that you will see and feel everything. You'll find humor, you'll find sadness and joy, you'll be attracted and repulsed, and you'll definitely feel every hair on the back of your neck stand at attention more than once.

It's really a surreal experience. Very shortly after it began, I found myself standing in a hallway, completely alone. It very easily could have been a scene from The Shining, but sustained for the nearly three hours we wandered through the place. My girlfriend and I got separated right at the beginning, and despite crossing paths a couple more times during the course of the evening, we always opted to part ways again and explore on our own. It's a compliment to the atmosphere that they have created in there that even if you came with someone (and you should, so you can talk about it after), you really want to experience this by yourself.

At the end, they reopen the speakeasy to you so you can have a drink (which you'll probably need) and swap stories with other spectators. After talking to my girlfriend and about half a dozen other people, it became very clear that despite technically attending the same show for nearly three hours, we all had wildly different experiences. My girlfriend saw a character I didn't know existed. I saw rooms she never came across. It's remarkable to build something like this and have it really allow for that much repeat attendance. I just went last night, and already I'm dying to go back and find other routes, other rooms and other experiences. I hope I've given you an idea of the show without giving much of anything away, because there's really no replacing going in completely blind and seeing where the show takes you.

Here's the warning - this is very much a show for adults, definitely an R rating. Only adults. Nudity abounds, and there's a number of things that happen that are unquestionably too intense and mature for kids. The Shining reference holds, but you need to add in a little Session 9 or Eyes Wide Shut - and of course some Hitchcock - to really get the idea. It's eerie, it's unnerving, and I'm sure it's a better experience when you don't have to worry about what sort of trauma you might be inflicting on your child.

Right now, it's scheduled to run through the end of the year, but I wouldn't be shocked if it gets extended - it's not like the school will be used for anything else, and I really hope this becomes insanely popular. If you're interested, I've got three pieces of advice: 1) Abandon any preconceived notions you have about the play, the characters, or theater in general; 2) Be ready to go along with anything - the show and the experience will be better for it; and 3) GO.

For tickets, click here. Or go find out more about ART and Punchdrunk.

A side note: I'm completely shocked that I ended up writing this. I've been consistently unimpressed with ART for years. For a long time, they've been the closest thing Boston had to professional avant garde theater, but I've always got the impression they were doing what I said I hate: being weird for the sake of being weird. It was almost like they were expected to do it, so they did it without a legitimate reason. That's not to deride anyone who has worked there in the past, I just... it always felt stuffy, and full of "importance" and "purpose," and none of that appeals to me. This show is full of "feeling" and "emotion," and it's incredible. In my mind, ART is back on the proper road. Their production of David Mamet's Marriage was fantastic, Sleep No More is hands down one of my favorite productions of anything ever, they've got a really cool-sounding version of The Great Gatsby coming next year... I can't remember the last time I was excited about ART. It's cool. Now let's just hope they don't screw it up with Red Sox Nation...