Sleep No More, Cupcakes, Gardening

[eredien]

Sleep No More: ab3nd, lutris, and I went to the ART's production of Sleep No More, a Hitchcockian adaptation of Macbeth, last night.

Oh my God. I can't tell you how awesome this show was. I literally cannot. I can say "it was like walking through a Jan Svenkmayer film," or I can say, "this is like being in a dream of the setting of my novel-in-progress," or I can say, "the actors violated my personal boundaries without my express consent and that experience was awesome enough despite the fact that I was somewhat triggered that I am still going back again," or "every basin was tinted crimson," and I can tell you I came home and rax said, "you look like you just had sex with a play," and I can say, "mandrake-patterned wallpaper," but that will not tell you about this show.

If you can get to this show, go. Just go. Yes, it's expensive. It is worth every penny and I would have paid twice as much had I known before going in what I was going to experience.

rushthatspeaks and nineweaving need especially to see this.

A few caveats & notes:
- For those who have motion/balance problems, there is a lot of walking/running around and actors expecting you to get out of their way as they dance or walk or run. One grabbed me by the hand and pulled me into a side room. If you decide to go, I suggest calling the box office first and letting them know you need accomodation. I think they are probably able to provide it and know that the venue itself is wheelchair-accessible.
- There is a place where you can go to relax and get out of the intense atmosphere of the play, and there are helpers who are stationed at various places who you can talk to or ask for help. If I had made use of these resources it would have been better, emotionally, for me.
- For those who are sensitive to smells and/or have sinus issues: bring your medicine with you. Take it beforehand if you need to. Some of the rooms smell very bad on purpose. They smell worse to those people with sensitive noses (I almost threw up when I opened the door to one smelling of mothballs, which is a smell that I am particulary sensitive to and particularly hate (note: yes, I am gladly returning to this play)).
- For those with glasses, if you can wear contacts, they are highly recommended. If not, try to wear non-tinted glasses.
- There is a strobe light in one part of the play. I never saw it because I was never there at the point that it was being used; so you can avoid it. There is also a lot of walking. Wear comfy shoes. Those two warnings are actually listed on the website.
- There are alcoholic beverages available. Apparently they are made with awesome, plot-appropriate things like rosemary.
- You can, I believe, go out of the "relax" area, get your hand stamped, go outside, and then come back in.
- At the end of the play everyone is gently herded into the "relax" area, which rapidly becomes crowded and raucous and noisy and filled with music and people. I was a little bit emotionally overwhelmed/panicky at that point and went and waited outside for a while, which was much quieter.
- There is a coat check, cost $2.
- If you tell the ushers on your way out that you are planning on coming back they will give you a coupon. If you don't you won't realize they are there (at least on my part).
- The place this is in Brookline is a pain to get to from the Camberville area. Parking is scarce. Foreplanning recommended.
- Items received: a playing card with mandrakes on the back, used to call the staggered groups. A packet of "mandrake" seeds from Cawdor Seed Co. A page torn out of an old Bible, folded into an envelope, and filled with salt-as-grave-dust.

Cupcakes: I also baked 36 mini vegan cupcakes from my shiny new copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World for tomorrow's BMC Holiday Party. Mawrters in Boston, let me know if you want to come, 'cause you have to RSVP!

Gardening: The bulbs (crocus and hyacinth) I planted this spring near the garage are blooming now because they think it is spring, which seems reasonable given the current weather (cold, but sunny, and little snow which melted quickly). This is unfortunate as soon there will be 6" snow on them and then they will die. What should I do?

Comments

[sovay]

Items received: a playing card with mandrakes on the back, used to call the staggered groups. A packet of "mandrake" seeds from Cawdor Seed Co. A page torn out of an old Bible, folded into an envelope, and filled with salt-as-grave-dust.

Between your review and sen-no-ongaku's, yes, I must see this posthaste.

[zdenka]

That sounds kind of like a Mark Lord play. But you said you enjoyed it, so I assume it isn't.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

should i brush up on my Macbeth before going? it's been awhile, and i never studied it seriously, and i haven't seen a production since before i was good at understanting shakespeare

[eredien]

Amusingly, apparently a bunch of your lj-friends were there all on the same day.

[eredien]

It does sound kind of like a Mark Lord play, except I think that the theatrical pretension was used for creepy dramatic effect and (I think) worked quite well as such, as opposed to theatrrical pretension for its own sake.

[eredien]

If you like, but it's not strictly necessary, IMO, as you can wander through the rooms without ever even seeing any of the actors. There's a summarized Macbeth on the website if that's easier for you.

I'm going to re-read Macbeth again before going (I didn't read it before I went on Wednesday), but I'm that kind of geek.

[autumnesquirrel.livejournal.com]

Reading the wikipedia page should be enough. Or I have a copy of the play you can borrow and just read the chapter headings. A full reread isn't needed.

[autumnesquirrel.livejournal.com]

You can get $20 tickets for any night.

Step One: Go to ART box office and get an "Adventure Pass", you can order this online first but I don't think you have to. Call first to check about that part? I ordered mine online.

An Adventure Pass costs $99 and has five punches on it.

Step Two: Convert as many punches as you want into "Sleep No More" tickets. This can be done over the phone, but you might as well do it when you go to pick up the pass. Punches can also be converted into "The Donkey Show" tickets. I haven't been to "The Donkey Show" so I don't know if it's any good or not.

[toberkitty.livejournal.com]

I really want to go to Sleep No More!

[darthbitsy.livejournal.com]

"The place this is in Brookline is a pain to get to from the Camberville area. Parking is scarce. Foreplanning recommended."

Its about a mile from me. Or nonsense, I do the reverse trip all the time. (OK, it is a pain...)

[eredien]

Thanks!

[eredien]

You should go!

[eredien]

I think it is harder to get to when you are already running late and have to park a car. :)

[rax.livejournal.com]

It's a fun trip between April and November. :)

[skygiants]

Man, your experience sounds seriously incredible. Did you get the grave-dust from Lady Macbeth?

And - okay, speaking of picking brains, here is what I wonder. How much time did you spend trying to put together a narrative, while you were watching the scenes? Some things were clearly straight out of Macbeth or Rebecca, but others were altered enough that I really found myself wondering if there was a way to put together the pieces of story.

[eredien]

Yes, I did; a bit of the dust blew into my eyes, unfortunately.

I honestly know Macbeth inside and out, and haven't seen much of Hitchcock, so most of my time was spent wandering through half-dark rooms and looking at props and drinking in the atmospherics and doing things like enjoying really esoteric medieval symbologic allusions having to do with the spiritual qualities of the birds mentioned in Macbeth, especially since it was spot-on atmospherics for a novel I'm writing. I wasn't really concerned with piecing together a coherent narrative.

I think if people are looking for a coherent narrative of Macbeth or Rebecca, there are lots of ways to do that, but felt this was more of a deconstructionist construction, and there aren't any others I'd seen. So, I tried to enjoy it for what I felt it was for me. I think that's the only way you get anything out of art, anyway. Other people's mileage may have varied.

I do think that if most people had wanted to piece together a coherent narrative, it would be possible, but partly due to chance (how soon do you come across a major character, for instance? How soon do you recognize their character? Do you choose to follow them?) and partly due to the person's individual stamina or mobility (this is not a show where people with bad knees and wheelchairs will be able to piece together a good narrative; the actors move around so much that if you can't keep up with them you're stuck).

[skygiants]

I'm not sure even following one character around creates a coherent narrative, honestly. (I'm saying that mostly due to my experience of following Lady Macduff around for most of her arc, which was very cool but left me enormously confused.) The impression I got was that you can put together pieces from what's acted, and there might be enough hints in the props and surrounding materials to build more - but of course no one would ever have time to examine all the surrounding materials, the setting is just too rich. I know Macbeth and Rebecca both reasonably well, and it came across to me as - very impressionistic, I guess, for the most part, in terms of capturing the feel of moments of the story, more than building a narrative. But there were some character choices that I keep wondering about, since they didn't seem to match anything that I could recall in either story, and those were the ones I kept wanting to find ways to explain via narrative.