Looking forward to Sleep No More

I ran across a recent article on boston.com: http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2009/10/04/sleep_no_more_allows_audience_members_to_pick_their_own_show/?page=full which describes a play that I’m really looking forward to seeing. Unfortunately the article is quite long winded, I’ve extracted the 3 most important paragraphs that describe the play below. If you want to buy tickets, here’s the link: http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org/events/show/sleep-no-more

Description:

The folks from Punchdrunk boil it down to “Macbeth’’ meets Hitchcock. With all that meeting going on, it’s hard to put a tidy label on these proceedings, but it’s safe to say that “Sleep No More’’ will be a new kind of experience for most theatergoers.

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This is a show you move through. The creators of “Sleep No More’’ – Punchdrunk artistic director Felix Barrett, co-director/choreographer Maxine Doyle, and executive director Colin Marsh – have transformed the Old Lincoln School in Brookline into a sprawling, labyrinthine set that audience members roam. You choose where to go and when. Perhaps you’ll follow a shadowy form that rushes past you on the stairs to the basement, or the sound of a party on the floor above. You might decide to trail one performer for an hour, or set off to find the three witches you glimpsed earlier. Take one whiff of the spoiled food in the Macduffs’ dining room, and you may run the other way. Go ahead and open the cupboards. Rifle through drawers. Find yourself completely alone in a room with an actor whispering in your ear.

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For all the freedom enjoyed by the audience, “Sleep No More’’ unfolds within a phenomenally complex structural framework and is 100 percent choreographed, down to where each performer is at a given moment in time, who he or she will meet and where, and how long a particular situation (Punchdrunk’s word for scene) will last. The plot unfolds in around an hour, but the evening lasts for three, meaning situations are repeated and audience members have a chance to encounter all the action.