Fandom and Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More Audience Ethnography of Immersive Dance Julia M. Ritter As I approach the McKittrick Hotel on 27th Street in New York City, the venue for Punch­ drunk’s immersive Macbeth­inspired production of Sleep No More, the scene outside resem­ bles a nightclub queue — people waiting for entry, chatting excitedly. Upon entering, we all go through the same routine: checking coats and bags, and paying for admittance. The ticket is a playing card and each person gets a different suit at random — heart, diamond, spade, club. We are directed to a dimly lit staircase and climb quietly, minds and bodies focused on mounting each step safely. The darkness deepens as we reach the landing and enter a pitch­black corridor Julia M. Ritter is Chair and Artistic Director for the Dance Department at Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. She completed her PhD in Dance at Texas Woman’s University and has received two awards for her research on dance and immersive performance, including the 2016 Cohen Lecture Award from the Selma Jeanne Cohen Fund for International Scholarship on Dance (USA), and the 2014 Prix André G. Bourassa for Creative Research from Le Société Québécoise D’Etudes Théâtrales (Canada). She is the recipient of three Fulbright awards for her choreographic projects in Europe. [email protected] TDR: The Drama Review 61:4 (T236) Winter 2017. ©2017 New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 59 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00692 by guest on 02 October 2021 that twists and turns sharply; the portentous soundscape is foreboding. My eyes struggle to find light and my body slows down further as I reach out for guidance and find walls cov­ ered in soft fabric. Just as the corridor feels interminable, the sounds of a spirited jazz combo break through the baleful music and a new reality emerges. In a cramped and bustling cab­ aret, upholstered in red velvet, cheeky bartenders provide drinks and a singer in an alluring, 1930s­style gown croons from the stage. In this diminutive pleasure den, attractive hosts and hostesses sidle up to spectators and seductively ask each to show their cards. With this coy request, we learn the relevance of the playing card in our hands; spectators are separated into groups according to the suit of their card — hearts and diamonds in one group, spades and clubs in another — and ushered into a small room. Here, a hostess distributes a white mask to each spectator as she articulates five statements, the first three of which are instructions: (1) keep your mask on at all times; (2) do not speak; (3) do not use mobile phones; (4) things are not as they seem; and (5) fortune favors the bold. The hostess pauses dramatically, then slaps the wall and instantaneously an eleva­ tor opens. A dapper elevator operator invites us in with a wink and a nod, and as the elevator ascends, he advises us that this journey is best undertaken alone. When the elevator jerks to a stop the operator motions to me to step out. As I turn around I see he has held the rest of the spectators back; as the elevator door closes, I am left alone in the darkness. Amidst a wave of panic, the hostess’s instructions come back to me: keep the mask on, don’t speak, be bold. Turning away from the elevator, I make my way down a dark hallway toward a light at the other end where I find a staircase. I follow my instinct to go down the stairs, trusting the kines­ thetic and emotional urge to return where I started to make sense of myself in this space. I dis­ cover a main street constructed inside the vast former nightclub, lined with derelict businesses: a sweet shop, a taxidermist’s studio, a funeral parlor, a detective’s office, and a tailor’s atelier. I peer inside the atelier and see the dioramic scene animated by a sharply dressed man lean­ ing over the counter stitching an item. He lifts his unmasked face from his task and catches me watching him, his gaze all the more intense now that I am expecting it to be masked. Realizing that he is a performer, I pull back sharply from the window; I am not ready to be seen. I move down the street and a group of spectators passes me, headed in the opposite direction. I pause and consider following them when another performer appears; he takes my hand and leads me into a small room adjacent to the detective’s office. Three other spectators stand against one wall and a male performer sits in a chair at the center of the room. The man who grabbed my hand pushes me firmly against the wall with one arm while lashing out with his other at the man in the chair. It is an interrogation; one dancer confronts while the other deflects, their limbs slicing the air as they skillfully dodge the light fixture swinging violently back and forth in the narrow space. I’m pushed out of the interrogation room and back onto the main street as another man I intuit is Macbeth approaches, his hands bloodied. He disappears down an alley leading away from the main street, dragging his hands along the ridges of its corrugated tin walls to create a deafening noise. A large crowd of spectators following Macbeth prevents me from getting close so I lag behind, walking slowly down the alley dragging my hand along the ridges as he did, feeling the metal echo rhythmically up my arm. I continue to wander and stumble upon scene after scene. In a speakeasy, a man and a woman perform a sensuous duet on top of a pool table. As they embrace and tumble across the smooth, green surface, they make eye contact with each spectator in the room, beguiling us with their gaze and tempting us to come closer; witches, I presume. Later, in an abandoned bar with dust covering unused bottles, Macbeth receives a prophecy from the three witches in a wildly physical and intricately choreographed scene featuring nudity, blood, and strobe lights. I find the family quarters of the Macduff family, which exudes domestic tranquility until I turn a cor­ ner and I see the Lord and Lady of the house tussling on top of a bookcase. Adjacent to these Figure 1. (previous page) Bald Witch. Digital illustration by Clay Rodery. (Photo courtesy of Clay Rodery Julia M. Ritter Julia M. © 2015) 60 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DRAM_a_00692 by guest on 02 October 2021 quarters is a graveyard, its air cold and stale and smelling like dirt. I am unnerved by the pre­ ternatural aura of death and I hesitate at the edge, trying to summon the courage to be bold. I am surprised at my fear but it feels real; when other spectators arrive, I allow them to pass me but then follow closely behind, feeling safer in their midst. We join 50 other spectators watch­ ing Macbeth and Lady Macbeth romance one another in a bedroom. She flirts while dressing and he tackles her onto the bed. Rolling to the edge, Lady Macbeth stands and falls backwards into Macbeth’s arms, who swings her body in an arc so her head passes just inches from the floor. Their passionate seduction continues as they press against each other while careening around the room and rebounding off the walls, a chest of drawers, a bathtub, and the bed. The Macbeths take leave of one another, disappearing in different directions, and the crowd splits, following one or the other. I attempt to follow Lady Macbeth but lose her. I dash after other dancers as they inter­ sect my path and each of these divagations further tangles my sense of the space and time. I climb a staircase and see what looks like a dense forest of leafless trees bathed in a pale blue light. It resembles twilight in late autumn and provides respite from the drama of the scenes I’ve just encountered. The calm dissipates however as I try to move through the trees; I real­ ize it is a maze and I find myself doubling back, going in circles and reaching dead ends. I make my way out of the maze into a sanatorium, the sterility of which is haunting. Walking past the neatly lined rows of hospital beds and bathtubs I am startled when I feel a hand on my shoul­ der; a nurse has found me and leads me out of the sanatorium and down a staircase to a ball­ room. She encircles my waist with one arm and pulls me close to her as she positions us both to watch dancers seated at a banquet table, moving in exquisite slow motion. Together we witness the guests at the banquet turn against Macbeth and organize his execution. The nurse grips my waist tightly and buries her face in my shoulder as Macbeth meets his fate. She turns me around and sends me out a door leading back into the cabaret. During this first visit as a spectator in 2012 toSleep No More, created by the UK­based Punchdrunk company, my mask became a tool for anonymity and the hostess’s instructions guided my movement through this unknown theatrical terrain. The term spectator, however, does not accurately characterize those who attend each performance of Sleep No More. This postdramatic mashup of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the films of Alfred Hitchcock (specifically Rebecca [1940] and Vertigo [1958]), and the lesser known yet true story of the late-­­­17th­century trial and execution of the seven “Paisley Witches” in Scotland is designed to envelope its par­ ticipant observers in a seemingly endless journey.