Last night I tried to explain the production of Sleep No More to someone at Harvard who had yet to hear anything about it. “Well you see, it’s an adaptation of Macbeth… but there are no words….and there isn’t a stage… and it’s actually in this big old school building… and you wear this weird mask… and you have to follow characters around to figure out what is going on…but you never actually know what is going on.” I realized about halfway through my explanation that not only was I not doing the production the justice it deserved, but also I myself was not entirely sure how to explain the experience that was Sleep No More.  The production, created by a London based group called Punchdrunk Theatricals known for their installation immersive theater in Europe, was brought to Boston this year by the A.R.T.. in an attempt to bring this new experience of theater to America. It certainly was an experience, and by far the most interesting one I have had in a while.

On Saturday night, I ventured out of Harvard Square with three friends to a place Harvard students would not journey to if it weren’t for the prospect of free theater required by one of our classes. Two subway lines and one hour later we arrived in what felt like the middle of nowhere, Massachusetts, otherwise known as Brookline. I’m sure in the light of day Brookline is just another respectable and well-to-do suburb of Boston. However, on a cold night when you are holding a small slip of directions that more or less ends with, “Follow the small hard-to-find path up to the looming school building on your right. ” you are more than willing to huddle closer to those with whom you came. Once you finally find the Old Lincoln School Building (which is the name of the venue on your ticket), Cambridge already feels very far away. But incase you are not entirely out of your comfort zone yet, you are ushered through a black corridor and are forced to navigate your way to the Manderlay Bar, a night club signaling the other influence of the production, Alfred Hitchcocks 1940 film Rebecca. There are servants to greet you, music, and other patrons waiting with drinks in hand for their turn to enter the “show” portion of the night. About twenty minutes later my group was called and we finally entered into the world we had come to see.

I cannot narrate the rest of my night from here on out because it would defeat the purpose of the show in many different ways. Once inside the school building, you are quickly separated from your group and the journey you chose for yourself afterwards is completely your own. That is both the genius and the most overwhelming aspect of Sleep No More. As an audience member we are forced to make choices at every turn. Do you follow that woman who you think is Lady Macbeth? What is going on in that room with all of that music and dancing? Are you missing something important in the hallway? Should you explore every room or should you follow that group of people running downstairs to the basement? You are constantly battling with what parts are worth seeing and how you will manage to see everything.

Sleep No More throws you into a complete sensory experience, including smell and taste (one room smelled so foul I could not stay inside for more than a few minutes and I witnessed an actor give an audience member a shot of whiskey for no apparent reason). Every room is filled with meaning and symbolism and every actor has a story that can be followed for the entire night. The performance is… strange and you will wander into more than one room in which you ask yourself something like, “Did I miss the part of Macbeth that had pounds of hair on the floor?” My first impression was that the entire production was a literary haunted house with symbolism that was always above my level of comprehension. At times I found this frustrating, but I soon realized that I wasn’t meant to understand everything around me.

As I made my way through the maze of rooms and storylines, I realized what intrigued me the most about the production was the relationship created between audience and actor. In a production that encourages you to do as you please, go where you want, touch everything, or even just sit down do nothing at all and observe, I felt a surprising amount of tension when it came to interaction with the actual actors. In most cases, the actors ignored the audience. The masked audience figures become simply part of their set that the performers must act around. I recall in one particular room watching with a large crowd a particularly graphic scene between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in her bedroom. I remember looking at all of the spectators and thinking to myself how it felt almost voyeuristic for us all to simply gape at the actors in the way we were. We were watching something secret between a husband and wife, something taboo. We were invisible to them and yet our presence was almost oppressive in the room. At one point Lady Macbeth went to her closet and looked out at us through a glass window. Suddenly she made eye contact with us and began to press her hands against the glass in an attempt to reach out to us in agony.  I saw in the reflection of the glass the many masked faces that she was looking out upon. It dawned upon me that we were no longer invisible to her, we were acting as the demons haunting her consciousness and watching her every move.

In a strikingly different situation, I wandered down to the basement at one point and entered into an empty room. I thought I was alone while I was inspecting the contents of the room until I turned a corner and found an actor sitting at a desk cleaning instruments. I stood there for a few minutes watching him, hoping he would do something. At one point he turned around as though he had heard a sound, but then went back to his cleaning. After a few minutes I realized how absurd I felt watching this man completely by myself when he clearly was not going to recognize my presence. I finally left wondering if he ever left that desk the whole night. I went back a little while later and he was gone.

The fact is, there are rules in Sleep No More, but one is never completely certain what they are. Just when you think you are not supposed to make eye contact with the actors, one of them will pull you into a closet and speak to you for five minutes (this did not happen to me… but I shamelessly wish it had). After a few hours of wandering around, I was walking up the stairs when one of the actors tapped me on the shoulder and gestured me to follow her. I was excited by the prospect and followed along with a large group of audience members. What I hadn’t realized was that she was leading us all to the exit since the show was over. “Already?” I thought, “ I was only just beginning to understand this thing!”. While one would need more than several viewings of the show to in effect “see everything” you can benefit from having come with friends. Once we navigated our ways out of the world of Sleep No More and back to Harvard Square, we found it necessary to get a meal together and discuss our nights. Each experience brought a new understanding to the production and further proved how this many-layered production is one that can yield many different interpretations… that is if you are daring enough to interpret it at all.

Sleep No More runs until January at the Old Lincoln School in Brookline Massachusetts. Don’t let the trip keep you from missing the most interesting theater experience you may ever see… and that is not an overstatement.