Spa day, sound bath, inspiring meditation, and an introduction to strange and tentacle rituals “Undersea” The immersive experience performed in the semi-finished Brooklyn basement ranks as the most bizarre show in town today. How strange is it? Show me another piece that hides a baby octopus (yes, OK, fake baby octopus) in the communal bathroom.
“Undersea” is the third work following “House World” and “Whisper Lodge”. Andrew Hoopner, Houseworld Immersive, runs a new company specializing in participatory theater. I missed the previous two shows, but last month or so I heard a few friends recommending “undersea” and mentioning it in the conversation. Booking a ticket started to feel a bit like fate. And the fate of Tuesday night is worse than being delivered to the basement door of a 19th-century church opposite the Smoke and Ark store. Knocking at the set time will open a small window. Speak your password and a man in an elaborate robe will play a xylophone and welcome you to a new world.
It’s not clear what the “undersea” is (which can be experienced in groups of one, two, or five). Perhaps I shouldn’t. Immersion depends on the surprise of not knowing what to encounter in the next corner. More abstract than immersive hits such as “Sleep No More” and “Then She Fell”, “Undersea” has a wide range of themes of change, death and rebirth. Submarine motifs are common, but they evaporate in certain rooms.
The show is ecumenically borrowed from ancient rituals ( Eleusinian Mystery Seems to be a particular point of inspiration) and New Age practice. It completely invents some rituals. At one point, he might have worshiped a jellyfish.
Throughout, performance insists on fundamental intimacy. The pre-show will give you safe words that you can say if the touch is not yours, but the touch provided is gentle and respectful and will not be delivered without your consent. However, not all intimacy is physical. The three actors (Hoepfner, Chia Kwa, and Naja Newell at night I attended) play the characters, but you play only yourself. And in the course of the performance, you will be asked to offer your own regrets, aspirations, and prayers.
I’m not used to making such disclosures to strangers. I rarely make them to therapists. Therefore, if you take pride in the boundaries between privacy and personality, the show can cause very moody feelings. (Maybe that squirting is appropriate for a show with a lot of cephalopods.) People with bad night vision, like me, need to be careful. The stairs are steep. And people like me who don’t like to sing in public—well, warm up.
From time to time, I pondered the politics of immersive theater, the implications of preferring personal experiences over co-participation. And at least when I wasn’t thinking about jellyfish, or if the fire burning on the seabed was a little high, or when I wasn’t thinking about how to find an emergency exit, I thought about it several times at the bottom of the sea. .. dark. However, the purpose of the “seabed” is strictly non-political. Instead, the show prioritizes internality and remorse over action and sends each participant on a private journey to something like peace.
Personally, the depth of my soul isn’t my favorite destination, but there’s a lot to enjoy along the way. Only 2 designers will be credited — Laura BorriesCreated a hallucinatory costume, and technical designer Howard Rigberg — but the “undersea” is a victory for style and low-budget ingenuity achieved by the simplest means of balloons, beans, wax and water. With the smallest square feet, it provides a deluge of sensations. Each new room reveals a strange and unique environment.
If you sometimes feel uncomfortable with the proximity (closeness) When Song), discomfort is a two-hour trade-off spent on something that can feel like lucid dreaming. Finally, I emerged from one kind of warm, moist darkness to another. My aura, if any, was completely purified.
Undersea
At Gymnopedie in Brooklyn. boto.nyc. Execution time: 2 hours.
