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Life and Trust (Sleep No More 2: Sleep Even Less)
As an anniversary adventure, Rebecca and I went to see Life and Trust, an immersive theater “experience” by the same group that did Sleep No More.
Honestly, though? It wasn’t as good. It was much bigger--six floors crammed full of areas and two dozen characters all with their own plotlines. And the full plot was longer, so an evening’s showing only looped twice, instead of three times with Sleep No More. (And if you have a later entry time, that’s really only one and half loops.) For Sleep No More, there was a central plot that you could generally follow if you knew MacBeth; every character figured into it. And even if you spent some time browsing through the various areas you could catch enough of the remainder to feel like you got the full experience. I saw Sleep No More twice, and when I went into it the second time I had a strong enough idea of what things I didn’t see that I could go hunting for them—and I had a mental map of the areas to work from.
Here? Nope, it’s too big. Too many of the characters don’t have sufficient distinguishing features, especially given how many of them there are. I followed “Isis,” aka “fishnets,” for a ways, until she disappeared offstage at what in retrospect was the end of the first loop. Then I tried following other characters, but it wasn’t clear who was actually following a plotline versus who just messed around in other people’s. I didn’t even visit big chunks of two of the floors; I had no idea how to get there. And I certainly didn’t have time to carefully examine anything, not if I wanted to have a clue about any of the plotlines. But even with the size of the cast, there were plenty of areas that were completely empty for long swathes of time. I suspect you could wander one of the floors for half an hour and never see an actor. Jethrien saw a big ballroom scene that figured into several major plots twice. I didn’t even realize there was a ballroom!
Was the overall mystery and dreamlike quality still there? Absolutely. If I hadn’t seen Sleep No More and went it without preconceptions I probably would have found it confusing but charming. As it was, the FOMO was almost overwhelming.
Overall: This reminded me, more than anything, of a video game sequel: Same gameplay loop, but they made it bigger and longer and with more setpieces and more characters. But they didn’t actually consider whether these “enhancements” would hurt the total experience more than help it. Also unfortunately, tickets are $200 each, so my interest in playing it repeatedly to see everything is significantly lower than if I had it in my Steam queue.
Honestly, though? It wasn’t as good. It was much bigger--six floors crammed full of areas and two dozen characters all with their own plotlines. And the full plot was longer, so an evening’s showing only looped twice, instead of three times with Sleep No More. (And if you have a later entry time, that’s really only one and half loops.) For Sleep No More, there was a central plot that you could generally follow if you knew MacBeth; every character figured into it. And even if you spent some time browsing through the various areas you could catch enough of the remainder to feel like you got the full experience. I saw Sleep No More twice, and when I went into it the second time I had a strong enough idea of what things I didn’t see that I could go hunting for them—and I had a mental map of the areas to work from.
Here? Nope, it’s too big. Too many of the characters don’t have sufficient distinguishing features, especially given how many of them there are. I followed “Isis,” aka “fishnets,” for a ways, until she disappeared offstage at what in retrospect was the end of the first loop. Then I tried following other characters, but it wasn’t clear who was actually following a plotline versus who just messed around in other people’s. I didn’t even visit big chunks of two of the floors; I had no idea how to get there. And I certainly didn’t have time to carefully examine anything, not if I wanted to have a clue about any of the plotlines. But even with the size of the cast, there were plenty of areas that were completely empty for long swathes of time. I suspect you could wander one of the floors for half an hour and never see an actor. Jethrien saw a big ballroom scene that figured into several major plots twice. I didn’t even realize there was a ballroom!
Was the overall mystery and dreamlike quality still there? Absolutely. If I hadn’t seen Sleep No More and went it without preconceptions I probably would have found it confusing but charming. As it was, the FOMO was almost overwhelming.
Overall: This reminded me, more than anything, of a video game sequel: Same gameplay loop, but they made it bigger and longer and with more setpieces and more characters. But they didn’t actually consider whether these “enhancements” would hurt the total experience more than help it. Also unfortunately, tickets are $200 each, so my interest in playing it repeatedly to see everything is significantly lower than if I had it in my Steam queue.
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We went to see it a few weeks ago, and had similar impressions -- lots of space, less coherent plot arc. I also found the sets less surreal and eerie than at SNM. There's no way to know who any of the characters are, although the devil became evident pretty quickly. That's who I followed, and they brought me into contact with tons of different characters / arcs. So I saw a lot of the show, but in brief snippets; I saw people get screwed around, but had no context for why what was happening to them was a particular torture.
I also got dropped off at the bank teller / small vault areas at the start, where, yes, exactly nothing happened for at least a solid 15-20 minutes. Plenty of time to investigate sets, but heavy, heavy FOMO.
E looked up and read me plot and character arcs online on the way home. I didn't catch much of any of them during the actual show. Too chaotic.