Sleep‘s unparalleled fourteen-year run – it launched on March 7, 2011, and is set to conclude on January 5, 2025 – is unlikely to ever be surpassed. If you were one of the lucky ones who caught it, as we did, it’s easy to understand why this immersive theatre phenomenon won over as many as it did. (Even if that fandom sometimes bordered on the obsessive.)

With Sleep finally on its way out, the U.S. producers who imported Sleep all those years ago have, understandably, raced to come up with a substitute, albeit without Punchdrunk’s contribution. So it is that, while Sleep‘s British creators experiment with smaller productions across the pond, New York-based Emursive Productions have gone out and built themselves a whole new Sleep No More.

Is this a craven attempt to cash in on the Sleep brand? Absolutely. Does it suffer from the lack of input from the real geniuses behind Sleep, U.K.-based Punchdrunk Theatre? Of course.

Does Life and Trust nevertheless have something worthwhile to offer the immersive theatre addict? Well, yes, that’s true too.

AGAIN YOU SHOW YOURSELVES

Emursive Productions’ Life and Trust is a reimagining of the Faust fable, here resituated to a Manhattan bank on the eve of Black Thursday, 1929. As in Sleep No More, attendees wear spooky masks (in this case, annoyingly adorned with antlers, making it tough to get a good view whenever a crowd forms). As in Sleep No More, the experience is almost more important than the story itself.

An opening sequence, one of the few with spoken dialogue, sets the stage: it’s October 23, 1929, and wildly successful banker J.G. Conwell has been offered a Faustian bargain: in exchange for, well, y’know, he can become young again, and indulge, if only for one night, in a lifetime’s worth of pleasures and fantasies, “every caress of the flesh, every secret bliss”.

Structurally, Life and Trust is incredible. Taking place across six storeys of a former bank which has been completely retrofitted by the Emursive team, its sprawling, three-hour narrative features a cast of dozens, and a world of quite literally hundreds of rooms, corridors, and other, more secret spaces.

One gets the feeling that even without a cast or a story, it would still be fun to wander through Life and Trust just for exploration’s sake.

YOU WAVERING FORMS

Life and Trust‘s story is well-told, even as it manages to be simultaneously too obvious and yet lacking in clarity.

The obvious bits – a banker named Conwell, a location called “Destiny Park”, a chapel emblazoned with the motto “In God We Trust” – are where the Punchdrunk absence is most sorely felt. Writer Jon Ronson (The Men Who Stare at Goats) and director Teddy Bergman have clearly analyzed Sleep No More inside and out, but they don’t have the subtle touch which Punchdrunk honed over years of experimentation.

This also helps explain why Life and Trust is probably too sprawling and unwieldy.

I am the first to admit I haven’t always understood everything Punchdrunk does. But there’s a clarity and rigour to Punchdrunk which is lacking in Life and Trust: there are too many characters, too many rooms, too many storylines, and not enough effort to bring them together into a coherent whole.

By the time Punchdrunk crafted its final mask show The Burnt City, it was so meticulously plotted that, even if you wandered off into its darkest corners, the combination of sound, light, and choreography would ensure you experienced at least some of its big moments. Life and Trust, on the other hand, feels like several disparate threads which occasionally intersect, but never entirely come together.

A fictional newspaper, available in the waiting area, goes some way to address this, providing a breakdown of the dizzying array of characters and thinly-drawn motiviations. Still, Life and Trust has the unfortunate tendency to live down to the Sleep No More reputation for obscurity which, in Punchdrunk’s case, was never entirely fair.

REVEALED, AS YOU ONCE WERE

Evaluated on its own – which is admittedly tough to do – Life and Trust is still a very good time at the theatre.

The world Emursive has created is truly spectacular, ranging from dark and foreboding subterranean corridors, to luxurious turn-of-the-century apartments, to areas which borrow from the science fiction and fantasy of the era. There were a handful of moments where I was truly blown away by an environment I’d discovered, and, comparing notes with others who’ve experienced Life and Trust, they feel much the same way.

The story of Life and Trust is also quite interesting. If anything lends itself to an immersive adaptation, surely the original 15th century devil’s bargain must be top of the list. There have been a lot of Fausts – some, like Goethe’s 1808 poem or Gounod’s 1859 opera, are the pinnacles of their respective genres – while others – David Mamet’s little-seen 2004 Faustus, Brian De Palma’s cult-classic film Phantom of the Paradise – failed to make the most of its irresistible premise. Life and Trust lies somewhere in the middle: the concept is captivating enough, but it’s occasionally lacking in execution.

Unsurprisingly, Life and Trust is heavy on allusion, with shout-outs not only to most of the above, but to other Faustian classics like Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Emursive even finds time for a few nods to Sleep No More, which feels a bit like the snake eating its own tail, but is fun nevertheless.

TO CLOUDED VISION

If its world design is where Life and Trust really shines, it’s in its final moments that the show finally, if belatedly, demonstrates its ability to stand on its own.

Dancing around spoilers, I can only commend the Emursive team for crafting a Sleep No More-like finale which has all the spark and razzamatazz one should expect from a Yankee remake. It’s almost as if Emursive realized at the last that if they can’t be artful, they can at least deliver on spectacle. It’s hardly a profound ending – I didn’t cry like I did at the end of Sleep No More – but it’s gloriously entertaining, and unmistakeably its own thing.

It’s too bad, then, that so much else in Life and Trust plays like a Punchdrunk greatest hits. Costumes, décor, dance choreography, even the design of the hidden spaces – all these are intended not merely to remind us of Sleep No More, but to reassure us there are still ways to get your Punchdrunk fix even after Punchdrunk leaves New York.

It’s perhaps appropriate that a show about the stock market should be so derivative. It’s perhaps even more appropriate that it was made with such shamelessly capitalistic instincts in mind.

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Life and Trust runs now until, who knows, fourteen more years, at the Life and Trust Bank, 69 Beaver St, New York. Tickets available here.

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Julia Cratchley, artistic director of Toronto’s Transcen|Dance Project, is an unabashed admirer too, which is why, in 2015, she and her team mounted a stunning Punchdrunk-like production, Count Dracula and the Eve of St. George, here in the city.

Returning nearly ten years later (and after repeated sold-out runs in 2018 and 2019), the retitled Eve of St. George (the vampire has been dropped from the name, but not from the show) is set to once more take over The Great Hall (1087 Queen Street West).

We loved Eve of St. George last time it was here, and we’re beyond thrilled that Toronto theatregoers will have another chance to experience what New York and London audiences have been raving about for decades.

Transcen|Dance Project is unafraid to acknowledge its influences.

Borrowing liberally from Punchdrunk’s immersive multi-room productions of years past, Eve of St. George has all the hallmarks of a night of spooky, immersive fun.

Here’s what to expect:

When you first step through the doors of The Great Hall, you’re handed a black mask, which must be worn all evening. The masks serve a dual purpose, encouraging audience members to think of themselves as guests at a masquerade, while also, more practically, making it easy to differentiate between audience and the cast of maskless actors and dancers.

Traversing the creaky halls and corridors of the 19th century Great Hall (it first opened its doors in 1889), you are free to explore its many rooms and galleries, never sure what you might encounter next. Given its vampiric inspirations, there’s a Gothic Horror feel to the whole thing, with performers looking like they’ve crawled out of a classic horror film, and the Great Hall’s many rooms redecorated to look like Victorian libraries, parlours, bedrooms, and so on.

Key to the experience are the intricately choreographed parallel storylines that run throughout the show, making it impossible, by design, for you to see every character’s journey.

You might, for example, spend fifteen minutes following the little girl creepily playing with a raggedy doll, only to be intrigued by a mysterious light down a stairwell. This, in turn, leads you to a dance vignette performed by two elegantly dressed characters. Meanwhile, the scary doll girl will have wandered on to spook some other guests.

The goal, in Eve of St. George, is not to see and do everything, but rather to immerse yourself and inhabit another world, if only for ninety minutes. Attending with – and separating from – a companion is strongly recommended, so that you can compare notes afterwards about what you saw, and did not see, during your respective journeys.

Audiences should be aware that Eve deals in some mature topics and themes (unsurprisingly, given its literary inspiration, there will be blood), and is not for the faint of heart. That said, it’s not a haunted house, and it’s not, strictly speaking, designed to frighten.

But it is strange and unsettling and altogether eerie, and the mere fact of wandering room to room, tension arising from the act of opening each new door you come across, means that some Torontonians may want to give this one a pass. (The show has a recommended age of 14+.)

On the other hand, if you’re even moderately curious, you should know that there are always volunteers to help out, and opportunities to take a break if it all becomes overwhelming.

Given that it’s sure to be the theatrical event of the season, I strongly encourage everyone with even a modicum of interest to brave the Great Hall – or should that be, Dracula’s Castle? – for an evening of spine-tingling fun. Who knows, you might even meet a certain Hungarian-accented count himself!

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Tickets and more information on the Eve of St. George can be purchased here.

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Instead of an analog frequency dial, the stream of sound comes through the website and hosted by Watson. What you’ll experience are sounds and stories from across Turtle Island. This is an incredible opportunity to listen in on a constellation of stories during these times created to remind us that we are not alone.

Throughout the day, you’ll hear 25 diverse artists with unique voices. When the national call out for submissions beamed to the universe, they were elated to have received 110 entries. They knew they only had room initially for 20. “it was very difficult to decide – i had to say no to people i know and love! it was so hard!” explained Watson. The advisory council, comprised of Bahia Watson, Lucy Coren, Yolanda Bonnell, Jasmine Chen, Marie Farsi, Brad Hodder, Mitchell Cushman and Griffin McInnes, met over Zoom and discussed each and every submission. “we worked to shape a day of listening with a lot of variety in terms of form and content, and voices from as many regions of turtle island as possible,” said Watson. “they were all so wonderful and honestly, i was so humbled and appreciative that people took the time to engage with us, with this idea and experiment. it really is a kind of recognition when people respond to a call like that (i’m tearing up!).”

This is not your traditional storytelling format. A hint of what to expect… “you might hear a little choose your own adventure, you might laugh about friendships falling apart and then be warmed by a story that follows when they really stay together. you might go on a morning stroll with someone who is partially deaf and then learn about the history of south africa through grandma’s cooking,” says Watson.

If you’re wondering if there’s any content geared to children and families, Watson tells us there’s a very sweet story by Brendon Allen created and told with his children, August and Clover, about a secret society of solitary socks.

A full program will be available on the official site programsound.fm and you’ll want to tune in on the day as it won’t be available anywhere else. “in the turn, ephemeral spirit of both radio and theatre, you have to be there to catch it, before it disappears.”

“we’re really interested in the possibilities of radio and story to manifest connection and community,” says Watson. It’s just the beginning and this is a pilot broadcast. They’re very much interested in growing this idea together so feel free to reach out to them after you’ve had a listen!

programsound.fm airs on Sunday, July 25, 2021 from 12:00 pm to 12:00 am EST.  For more information visit their site here.

The post The Handmaid’s Tale’s Bahia Watson & creatives launch programsound.fm appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

Designed for the first time to include two audience members at a time and featuring an exciting new virtual reality component developed by mixed reality content specialists toasterlab, The Stranger 2.0 will unfold on the streets with a new cast, new scenes, new locations, and a choice between two independent journeys.

above: A cross-city adventure with a retro Italian flavour that takes participants from a midtown area to locations they have likely never explored before.
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below: A downtown adventure in the underground areas of Toronto where performers emerge from the crowds.

Where does it begin? That’s part of the surprise. You’ll be provided with a meeting/starting point at a public space 24 hours before your confirmed start time. A cast member will greet you and provide initial instructions. From there, you’ll just go with the flow. Oh! And make sure you’re wearing comfortable shoes – sneakers are highly recommended. Bring a fully charged phone too. You can read about our previous experience with  The Stranger here.

The first award-winning version of The Stranger had sold out editions around the world including in India and Europe and DLT brought two new versions back to Toronto in 2015 and 2016. The Stranger 2.0 continues The Stranger tradition of an immersive and interactive theatrical experience in which the city becomes the stage and the audience becomes the protagonist. Designed for two audience members at a time, this 75 to 90-minute journey thrusts participants into a secret world. By following “strangers” into streets, alleyways and undisclosed locations, the downtown is transformed into an urban labyrinth and participants find themselves at the centre of an unfolding narrative that blurs the lines between reality and fiction.

DLT was founded in 2006 in Florence, Italy, by artistic director Daniele Bartolini and is now based in Toronto. The theatre company is dedicated to innovative, experimental and multi-disciplinary artistic practices.

For more information on The Stranger 2.0, dates and tickets, visit www.dltexperience.com.

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