| Sleep No More | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Punchdrunk (directed by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle) |
| Date premiered | March 7, 2011 |
| Place premiered | The McKittrick Hotel, New York City United States |
| Original language | English |
| Official site | |
Sleep No More (2011 theatrical production) is an immersive theatre installation created by British theatre company Punchdrunk based on Punchdrunk's original 2003 London production and their 2009 collaboration with Boston's American Repertory Theatre. The company reinvented Sleep No More in a co-production with EMURSIVE, which began performances at The McKittrick Hotel in Manhattan on March 7, 2011. It won the 2011 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience and won Punchdrunk special citations at the 2011 Obie Awards for design and choreography.
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The production is an expansion upon both prior productions of Sleep No More, first at the Beaufoy Building in London in 2003 and in 2009 at the Old Lincoln School in Brookline, Massachusetts. Sleep No More tells the story of Macbeth through a film noir lens. The production “leads its audience on a merry, macabre chase up and down stairs, and through minimally illuminated, furniture-cluttered rooms and corridors.”[1] The masked[2] audience moves freely at their own pace, choosing where to go and what to see, and everyone’s journey is unique.[3]
Critics have compared the production to other works from a wide range of media, with New York Magazine’s Scott Brown referencing BioShock, Lost, Inception, and M. C. Escher, and The New York Times’ Ben Brantley referencing Stanley Kubrick, Joseph Cornell, David Lynch and Disney's Haunted Mansion.[4] The production is mostly wordless, prompting The New Yorker’s Hilton Als to write: “Because language is abandoned outside the lounge, we’re forced to imagine it, or to make narrative cohesion of events that are unfolding right before our eyes. We can only watch as the performers reduce theatre to its rudiments: bodies moving in space. Stripped of what we usually expect of a theatrical performance, we’re drawn more and more to the panic the piece incites, and the anxiety that keeps us moving from floor to floor.”[5]
Sleep No More takes place at the fictional McKittrick Hotel, a reference to the film Vertigo. According to the show's website, the hotel was completed in 1939[6] and “intended to be New York City's finest and most decadent luxury hotel.” The site goes on to explain that “six weeks before opening, and two days after the outbreak of World War II, the legendary hotel was condemned and left locked, permanently sealed from the public” until it was restored and reinvented by Punchdrunk and EMURSIVE.
The McKittrick Hotel is actually three adjoining warehouses in Chelsea's gallery district. The address is the former home of megaclubs Twilo, Spirit, Bed and more. The 100,000-square-foot (9,300 m2) space has been transformed by Punchdrunk into “some 100 rooms and environments, including a spooky hospital, mossy garden and bloody bedroom.”[7]
A floor map (floor plan, layout) and scene list of the McKittrick Hotel are being developed.[8]
Critical response was overwhelmingly positive with rave reviews in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Vice,[9] The New York Post[10] and Time Out New York[11] as well as a critical essay in The New Yorker.
Recent press has focused on celebrity presence at Sleep No More, with articles in The New York Post[12] and People[13] citing visits from Trey Parker, Kim Cattrall, Hugh Jackman, Neil Patrick Harris, Kevin Spacey, James Franco, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen,[Pink] and an impromptu performance at the Manderley Bar by Florence Welch.[14] The cover article of the August, 2011 issue of Vanity Fair[15] follows actress Emma Stone through the winding halls of The McKittrick Hotel.
Performances began March 7, 2011 with an official press opening on April 13. Though it was initially advertised as a six-week run, the production has been extended several times due to overwhelmingly positive critical and audience response. It is currently scheduled to close on February 25, 2012.
Created by Punchdrunk; Produced by EMURSIVE (Randy Weiner, Arthur Karpati and Jonathan Hochwald) in association with Rebecca Gold Productions and Douglas G. Smith.
Nearly the entire company performs in every performance, but actors alternate roles. Listed here are the roles played most frequently by each actor, though many have played other roles as well.
The Manderley Band
The Django Conwick Trio
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