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Poor Players, Heard No More

Hello, my little cherubic jewels of the internet. It's been a damned long while, and it's high time that Maxim de Winter made his long-awaited return to the Tumblrverse. Keep your smelling salts on hand, ladies (and gents). I thought I'd get myself back into the swing of things with a little chat about the unseen guests at our favorite urban auberge.

The McKittrick Hotel, for all its artificiality in the face of some not-insignificant suspension of disbelief, is meant to represent a massive amount of space--a city, an asylum, a hotel, three residences, a forest and a graveyard. To contribute to the illusion that these spaces are "real" and "lived-in" requires a number of props that point to the existence of life outside of what we see in the show. Oftentimes this means implying the existence of other, unseen characters who do or once did occupy the space. The McKittrick would be a dead place indeed if we weren't presented with hints that the twenty characters we see regularly interacted (at least during their ordinary, mortal lives) with other, perhaps less disturbed, folks about town.

So, here I will briefly list some of the off-stage characters of Sleep No More and will explain their significance to the show, such as there is any.

Lennox While Lennox does not appear as a corporeal character within the McKittrick Hotel, his presence within the town of Gallow Green is remarked upon in several documents found in Malcolm’s detective agency, including the following lines from Act II, Scene iii:

(i) One witness statement in which Lennox is quoted as saying:

"The night has been unruly. Where we lay, our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say, lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death and prophesying with accents terrible of dire combustion and confused events new hatch'd to the woeful time. The obscure bird clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth was feverous and did shake."

#sleep no more nyc #Maxim de Winter #mckittrick hotel #SNM #Sleep No More

Good afternoon, my darling readers.

Rebecca here, writing you all just a quick little note. It recently came to mine and Maxim's attention that there have been some rumblings in the Tumblrsphere as to the Fair Use status of one of our posts. To avoid the trouble of upsetting any of the talented and industrious men and women who work so hard to bring us the naughty chthonian pleasures of our favorite hotel, we promptly redacted some of the allegedly copyrighted material.

In light of this, my darling idiot of a husband and I promise to be more careful in the future about posting original (that is to say, non-derivative) quotes from the show.

Cheers, and happy Sunday, everyone!

Once upon a time, there was a little boy. He was the happiest little boy in the whole world\...

Her gloves were off. And her bare hands felt like a cool burn. The way she told it to me, it sounded like a fairy tale.

With my back against the wall, she buried her soft face against my chest and wept. And the rain swept against my face. And she smelled like a too-early love.

“HELP ME FIND MY RING!!! I know you know where it is.”

Then she gave me a kiss I never earned and sent me away, back into the darkness.

When Maxim and I first began thinking about the Porter's function within the world of Sleep No More, we knew little else except that, in terms of the causal relationships between and amongst all the horrific events that occur within the hotel, he is, with the possible exception of Hecate, the most important character in the show. In every respect that counts, not only is he our eyes and ears into the goings-on of the McKittrick, but he is also, in some sense, responsible for those goings-on.

What’s more: Hecate's story is about him.

What we have to remember about the Porter is that, along with Hecate (and, it could be argued, Matron Lang upstairs), he is aware that the cycle of violence keeps repeating—that he and his constituents are doomed to repeat the same hopeless movements, with the same tragic consequences, time and time again. He is not like Duncan, who wakes up in the morning believing that his violent death was merely a bad dream. Nor is he like Macbeth, who might, upon finding Banquo alive and well in his garret, dismiss his heart-rending dance through Birnam Wood as a flight of a powerful imagination. Unlike the others, the Porter does not have the luxury of forgetting, or of hoping. Instead, he is forced to witness the unending cycle of tragedy, fully aware that he was unwittingly complicit in launching it. And furthermore, he stands alone in that he, in certain moments, takes it upon himself to stop it.

Our Porter is both a perpetual victim and a tragic hero. This poor man found himself to be the patsy in a bitter bargain that cost him his freedom and shocked his conscience; and now he is desperately trying to both extract himself from that fateful contract and to mitigate the horrible consequences it will have for others.

While it's true that there is little in the McKittrick Hotel to indicate that there is a world outside of it—that is, it is both temporally and physically operating within a closed loop—the above story indicates that, in some sense, all the characters at one point entered this world. They all had lives preceding their fateful visit to the McKittrick, and they have all given in to temptation (one of the most important themes in the show) and willfully walked through a door into this horrible purgatory.

The Manderley is that door. More than just a glorious post-Eduardian Cornwall estate, or a musky speakeasy, Manderley is a portal into the world of the McKittrick Hotel—one through which each guest has had to pass, and at a terrible price. And the myriad mentions of Manderley within the hotel contain within them the hopeless wish that they might one day escape from whence they came.

When Agnes Naismith whispers, “we can never to go back to Manderley again,” it is with more than the mournful whimsy of a young girl. It is her painful realization that she will never leave this world, this cycle into which she walked, perhaps with the naive belief that she could operate above the questionable characters around her—and the sinful deeds they commit—and somehow escape unharmed. The Orderly, too, from the within some forgotten alcove of the King James Sanitorium, reminds us that “we can never go back” again. All of the characters are stuck there forever, doomed to live out their most tragic decisions, their most regrettable mistakes, in a loop stuck on repeat for eternity. While many among us who find refuge and solace there may at times refer to the McKittrick as a place something like heaven, I must say, it seems more and more clear that it is some exceptionally terrible kind of a hell.

In Rebecca, Manderley was a physical, almost living, reminder of a dark past and some haunting memories that the characters of the novel (and film) were unable to escape—at least, not until the entire estate burned to the ground. In Sleep No More, the Manderley at the McKittrick occupies a similar symbolic space. It is only too aptly named, and it is by no coincidence that each guest must pass through Manderley to get to the McKittrick. Whereas we may enjoy a gay scene full of booze and jazz and beautiful people, it is only a brief idyll, delaying the moment at which we are forced to bear witness to the cycle of morbid, frightful, atrocious events that seem like an unrelenting case of somnambulant déjà-vu. In this way, we are not unlike the characters themselves, who, for all their talk of going back to Manderley, must have also had to pass through its doors, leaving their previous life for this altogether new form of existence in which Hecate lords over time and circumstance with a velvet-gloved fist. And they remain there still, forced to undergo adversity without end, until she can retrieve what she is looking for.

Of course, when we pass through Manderley and enter the world of the McKittrick, we do so as mere observers. We are to the inhabitants therein not much more than ghosts, dispassionately observing their lot in this half-life; every once in a while, we are offered a closer look and perhaps even a chance to try to help end the madness, but in the end we are entirely inconsequential. As such, it is all-too-easy to forget that, for the characters, this transition into the cold, unforgiving world of the hotel was no kind of vacation.

When it is said that "we can never go back to Manderley again," it is often from our own perspective—that of the of the excited Guest, wishing he could return to the world of Sleep No More again. But we all know better. Put simply, this statement is not meant for us at all. It is meant for them, the poor souls within the hotel who long desperately to escape. They yearn to return to that place that they forsook for this harrowing limbo. To return to Manderley would be to return to a place and time before they found themselves stuck in this excruciating mobius strip of a reality.

We suspect that these characters know that life wasn’t always like this—that something is greatly amiss in the way they act out the events of that fateful night over and over again. There is no shortage of clues within the show that indicate this, many of which we’ve discussed before. And only in moments of the deepest intimacy and confidence do we learn that the residents, like Agnes, suspect that the world is wrong and long to escape.

Thus, "We can never go back to Manderley again" is more than a wistful expression of a fond memory. It is a warning. Manderley is a one-way door. Each one of the human characters has walked through it, their eyes glimmering with hope and intrigue, enticed by the mystery and danger that lurked in the shadows. And what a price they have paid for it.

[A quick note to our friends who take the surrealist point of view (i.e. that the McKittrick Hotel is an interactive snapshot of Macbeth's subconscious, with all its disparate anxieties and desires represented physically): Maxim's and my reading of this aspect of the show should not be construed to exclude or contradict that interpretation, as we’re rather fond of it ourselves.]

In any case, you might be wondering, what does this have to do with The Porter, or, indeed, the story with which we began this discussion? Everything, it seems, as the Porter has the dubious distinction of being, in many ways, the intermediary between the "spiritual" world of Hecate and the "corporeal" world of the McKittrick Hotel. Just as the Porter of Shakespeare's play fancied himself to be the doorman at the gates of hell (and was more correct about that than he could have realized), so, too, does the Porter of Sleep No More feel he is the unwilling gatekeeper of this dreadful limbo to which he has been doomed forever.

That the Porter is the little boy in Hecate’s story is difficult to put one’s finger on at first, but once one becomes aware of it, this fact colors everything the Porter does. Of the more obvious indicators are (i) Hecate’s request that the Guest retrieve her lost engagement ring from the Porter, who spitefully replies with a note enclosed with a worthless brass ring, or (ii) the Porter’s sullen tracing of his palm on a bit of McKittrick stationery, on which he draws his winding trail through the dark forest, as well as the ship that not only gave birth to his tormentor, but might also represent his only means of escape, and (iii) his “one-on-one,” in which he entrusts the Guest with a ring of his own, and, in a moment of dissociation and delusional projection, imitates his tormentor.

Even though the details of the story itself is drowned in metaphor, we see illustrated in examples like these the idea that the Porter has found himself enslaved within a cruel devil’s bargain. This is obvious in almost everything he does. As a little boy, the Porter agreed to aid Hecate in finding her lost ring, to his eternal detriment. While she may have been aware of what a fool’s errand it was, Hecate nonetheless bound the Porter to his hasty promise—imprisoning him within the hotel, and employing him as the human arbiter of her nefarious plans. Where the cyclical nature of time within the hotel is entirely a machination of Hecate’s—to be maintained until such time as she may reclaim her ring—the Porter himself is entrusted with maintaining the status quo that is in line with Hecate’s mission.There are times when he does so dutifully, namely:

● Preparing the lobby table for the witches’ arrival prior to their delivering Banquo’s prophecy, once again making way for the tragic cycle to unfold.

● Placing a phone call to Malcolm, informing him that “On Tuesday last a falcon was hawk’d at and kill’d,” effectively kick-starting Malcom’s cycle of obsession and obfuscation.

● Applying Vapo-Rub to Boy Witch’s eyes, which will allow him to cry during his rendition of “Is That All There Is?” (After all, witches lack the capacity to cry, and it is these falsely-produced tears that allow Boy Witch to seduce his audience).

● Delivering Banquo’s prophesy to the witches.

● Tendering Macbeth’s letter to Mrs. Campbell for delivery to Lady Macbeth’s quarters.

All of these acts—not to mention his administration of the McKittrick Hotel in general—betray the Porter’s begrudging obedience to Hecate, and each help in some way to carry out her master plan. However, it is this last task that proves to be the most important, as we shall see, because it is this moment that effectively queues the cycle to begin all over again. But there is, in our Porter, a very deep conflict between his obedience to Hecate and his basic humanity. This conflict is absolutely central to our understanding of his character.

Like the Porter of Shakespeare’s play, the Porter of Sleep No More is an embodiment of evolving contradictions. Whereas Shakespeare’s Porter is a lecherous character whose dialogue consists of a host of antitheses that speak to the fair/foul binary of the play (provokes/deters, makes/mars, sets on/takes off, persuades/disheartens, etc.), Sleep No More’s Porter is torn between his responsibility to serve Hecate, his tormentor, and his need to honor his more humane moral impulses. That is why we see him do a number of things that appear to be in line with Hecate’s mission, as well as a number of other things that appear to be attempts to throw a wrench into the whole works. In fact, he is driven mad by Hecate’s constant reminder that, until her ring is returned to her, she will force him to witness unjustified murder repeatedly and endlessly. Even when he tries to alter the course of events for the better, such as his attempts to keep Lady Macduff from drinking the drugged milk, or his effort to keep Agnes far away from Hecate’s lair, he fails tragically. With each passing cycle, the faint glimmer of hope that this succession of torment may end is dashed again, and again, and again. No matter what he might do, he seems completely helpless to stop the cycle of tragedy. The death of Lady Macduff in particular seems to have a harrowing effect on our Porter, as he always seems to know when her murder coming—and when it finally happens, all he can manage to do is write to Hecate, his mistress, and beg her to be let out of their bargain. “Will you please accept my tears?” he writes dolefully. But this is all to no avail, as Hecate forces the Porter to bloody his own hands, making him pay an eternal punishment for his failure as a young boy, forcing him to bear witness to, and responsibility for, a host of horrifying scenes.

It goes without saying that this experience has taken a damaging toll on our poor Porter, and the most potent expression of his angst and torment can be found during his one-on-one, where, in a profound moment of psychological pain, he channels the image of his tormentor. In this scene, it becomes clear to us that The Porter is not merely some drunken Shakespearean placeholder, but is rather an artistic reinterpretation of one of cinema’s most famously perverted personages. The Porter is Norman Bates from Hitchcock’s Psycho.

Like our Porter, Norman Bates was once a happy little boy. However, as a result of severe childhood trauma, Bates’ psyche becomes a distorted and perverted quagmire of idolatry, lust, guilt and shame. Having suffered cruel emotional abuse at the hands of his overbearing mother, Norman Bates grew to be both disdainful of and dependent on her, to the point that, when she took a lover for herself, Bates murdered them both. After an implied stint at a sanatorium Bates developed a severe form of dissociative identity disorder, whereby he feels compelled to assume her personality, mannerisms and garments in order to repress the memory of her death and sublimate the guilt of having killed her. By impersonating her, Bates is able to avoid directly confronting the trauma in his conscious mind, and is actually able to sustain the illusion that she is still alive—that he never killed her at all. (See Sandis, Constantine. “Hitchcock’s Conscious Use of Freud’s Unconscious.” Europe’s Journal of Psychology. 3/2009, pp. 56-81). Of course, as we all know, the film goes even further to express the extent of Bates’ psychosis, as Bates also unwittingly takes on the mantle of his mother when he murders women whom he finds sexually attractive. The standard Freudian line is that he adopts the persona of his mother in order to rid himself of the blame and guilt for his crimes. (Id.)

Freud wrote at length about his belief that traumatic events, particularly those from childhood, are systematically repressed by the conscious mind in an attempt to avoid the pain and guilt of having to confront them. However, these destructive memories don’t go away. They remain in the subconscious, where they may blossom into untold varieties of neuroses and psychoses. Where Bates is said to have murdered his mother and her lover after finding them in bed together, we may look to Freud and his theory of repetition compulsion, whereby the traumatized person will actually force himself to relive the traumatic event over and over again—whether through memory, dreams or even actions—in an attempt to gain mastery over it.

One key element of this theory is Freud’s observation of the urge on the part of the patient to put himself into situations where that traumatic event (or a similar sort of experience) is likely to recur. This idea of repetition is vaguely evident in Norman Bates’ dressing like his mother, and in killing others while wearing her clothes (it is also particularly clear in other Hitchcock films from which Sleep No More draws inspiration, especially Vertigo, wherein Scotty compulsively dresses up Judy as “Madeline” in an attempt to rid himself of his guilt for having let the latter die). About this theme of repetition in Freud’s works and in Hitchcock’s films, we need not look very long to notice the same treatment in the McKittrick Hotel, as the very cyclical nature of events taking place within the hotel sees to it that each character repeats traumatic events in their lives over and over, to the most literal degree and at the worst price.

But more to the point, it is by understanding Bates’ compulsive re-enactment of a painful, repressed memory and also his easy dissociation from reality that we can approach and understand Sleep No More’s Porter. Like Bates, our Porter is deeply haunted by memories of an exploitative childhood relationship, which he is both trying to escape and relive. However, rather than an overbearing and repressive mother, the Porter’s tormentor is the goddess of witchcraft herself, Hecate, who found him as a little boy and impressed him into her service. It is Hecate whom the Porter serves with reluctant and resentful devotion.

The subtext of transvestitism in Bates’ character particularly seems to apply to our Porter. Recall his one-on-one scene, in which the Porter, still shaking from Boy Witch’s assault, dons a wig and slowly applies a thick layer of red lipstick in the small mirror, staring in wonder at his reflection for a time, his eyes brimming with tears. This scene mystifies many guests of the hotel who have the good fortune to witness it, but when we remember Norman Bates, it becomes clear that the form of imitation is the same in each case. Have you ever noticed that the Porter’s tube of red lipstick is identical to that which Hecate carries in her purse? Or have you ever noticed how important lipstick seems to be to Hecate and her witches (something about which we are writing soon enough)? Here The Porter is, in a moment of extreme emotional disturbance and psychological weakness, adopting the persona of his tormentor in an attempt to cope with both the torturous memories and the horrible guilt he experiences at the hands of that tormentor. Like Bates, he seeks solace in impersonating his tormentor, vicariously adopting her power, tricking himself into believing that he is in fact the final arbiter of his destiny. It is a fantasy that perhaps he can, for just a moment, be her, and possess her power, and be able to change the course of events for good. With each passing cycle, the Porter, who, you will recall, is only too aware of the endless repetition of events, finds himself compulsively taking on Hecate’s mantle in the same manner, and for largely the same reasons, as Norman Bates.

There are, of course, several other parallels. Let us not forget, too, that in the original film version of Psycho we can clearly see Bates’ undeniably effeminate nature: the film “includes a shot of Bates swinging his hips as he climbs up the stairs. It only lasts a for a few frames but it is sufficient for an observant viewer to infer the film’s denouement from it. As Hitch put it, ‘the basic clue was in the feminine nature of the character altogether.’” (Id.). In this context, it is not so mysterious why the Porter displays rather effeminate and at times stereotypically homosexual mannerisms, even showing signs of being in love with that ever-alluring Boy Witch (and who can blame the poor fellow?). It allows us to draw upon the association between Bates and the Porter, and to, as Hitchcock did in Psycho, offer the “observant viewer” a clue as to the source of the evident trauma in the character’s past.

It bears mentioning that our Porter is, of course, quite unlike Norman Bates in that Bates is, himself, a cold-blooded murderer, but the Porter’s dissociation and Bates’ are justified by remarkably similar psychological motives. Like the Porter, Bates is an odd but seemingly harmless young man who takes the form of his tormentor (and first victim, his own mother) to carry out his crimes, by donning a wig and a dress. By so doing, his subconscious mind navigates his tremendous guilt for his evil deeds by rendering his conscious mind completely unaware that he is responsible for them. To Bates, the murders are actually (in his own psyche) committed by his mother, a woman who has tormented him for his entire life, well after he had gotten permanently rid of her.

The Porter, on the other hand, while blameless, is also escaping his guilt. Remember, Hecate doesn't merely force the Porter to witness the various tragedies that happen on his watch, she forces him to participate. Without the Porter’s obedience—at least toward the beginning of the cycle—it is very possible that many of the tragic events we see might be avoided—Lady Macduff’s in particular. And, despite his feeble resistance in key moments, the Porter utterly fails to put a stop to it. In this way, it’s not that difficult to understand the angst he betrays in his one-on-one. Norman Bates and the Porter both take on the guise of their female tormentors in moments of unbearable weakness--moments in which they are utterly incapable of coping with their own failures and with the evil perpetrated by their oppressors. In one way or another, each must bear witness to murders they are responsible for, however active or willfully they may do so. When you think about it, how different are they, really? Don’t they both have to clean up the mess that remains after a murder? Is there much of difference between the Porter packing up the dead Lady Macduff’s garments in her suitcase and Bates cleaning up Marion Crane’s bathroom?

Drawing the necessary identification between The Porter and Norman Bates illuminates other aspects of The Porter’s actions, mannerisms, and general character as he performs his regular tasks and interacts with other characters inside of the hotel. The Porter, like Bates, awkwardly tends to the needs of his guests while, more often than not, becoming directly involved in the fulfillment of their fates. Toward the beginning of his cycle, The Porter, like Hecate’s other minions, ensures that each character reach their appointed destiny within the hotel. However, as the cycle drags on, particularly after his being rebuked by Boy Witch at the phone booths, he instead tries to engineer a reversal of fortune—a revolt, if you will– as he tries gallantly to stall or prevent the characters’ from fulfilling Hecate’s intentions. He fails in his attempts to prevent Agnes Naismith’s meeting with Hecate in the Replica Bar, for instance. He also tries desperately to save Lady Macduff from her downing the drug-laced milk, which is delivered mercilessly by the maid, aware as he is that it will leave her vulnerable to being murdered. In the end, however, he proves no match for the inertia driving Hecate’s plan forward.

Above all his other attempts to foil the plot, it is the Porter’s resistance to the impending death of Lady Macduff that provides the most insight into this major internal conflict of his character. It seems to be that, of all the tragedy that he is forced to witness on a nightly basis, it is the murder of Lady Macduff that he tries most fervently to prevent; and there are very clear reasons for this. For one, Lady Macduff is the only character he meets who is not interacting with or engaged in witchcraft. In addition, aside from her drug use, she seems to be, unlike almost all her fellow residents, a wholly innocent victim. And finally, the death of Lady Macduff is the only murder that the Porter is forced to witness first-hand. She is the most palpable and horrifying reminder of his enslavement to Hecate, and it is Lady Macduff’s murder that finally drives the Porter to throw in the towel each night—in the form of his pitiful letter to Hecate. And it seems that, of all people, it is Lady Macduff who has a real chance at making a complete escape from the endless torment that this world inevitably exacts upon its inhabitants, if only because the Porter is better placed to help her than anyone else. One could easily imagine that, in the Porter’s troubled mind, there is the hope that Lady Macduff might escape the cycle, and live out a happy life without devastating memories of what has been done to her. Perhaps that is why, each cycle, when he fails to prevent Lady Macduff from drinking the milk, he sulks in his phone booth, and hands Mrs. Campbell the very letter that is sure to start the whole process over again. This action is so significant to the Porter's story: it is an admission of defeat, but also an expression of his resolve to carry on. Just one more try, he seems to say in that moment. One more try and I'll get it right. But alas, as always, the poor Porter simply can’t do enough to save her from Mrs. Campbell’s clutches and from Hecate’s divine plans. In the end, she becomes another victim, just like our Porter.

All of this being said, I might recommend that other travelers consider alternative lodging arrangements for their next visit; the price of checking in at the McKittrick for the night might be more than you bargained for, as its inhabitants would tell you if only they had the chance.

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #Rebecca #psycho #hitchcock #mckittrick hotel

What have y'all been up to?

In a word, this:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Rebecca and I have produced a complete, hand-bound edition of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, annotated with detailed notes about Sleep No More. We have painstakingly cataloged all the show’s references to the play and explained them in some detail using footnotes and cross-references.

We have already given away our first copy to the graceful, slender and painfully beautiful Thane of Glamis, and we will give more away as we produce more copies.

We intended to follow the example and largesse of my man Friday, BloodWillHaveBloodTheySay, whose talent and kindness has benefitted us (as well as countless others on this tag) some lovely, hand-made studded masks.

Therefore, in that spirit, we intend to bind as many as we can (time- and money-permitting) and give them away to you fine folks. So, if you have a hankering to see what’s inside, find us in the Manderley, get us drunk enough to flirt up a storm, and be bold enough to ask. Though, be advised, you may receive more than you bargained for.

In other news, we have a few more essays nearly ready for publication. Rebecca is finishing a real doozy right now that will knock your socks (and trousers) off. Meanwhile, I have been taking a page out of dismantlethepsolc’s book and have worked out the perfect recipe for a martini. You just pour out five measures of gin, then you drink it whilst staring at a bottle of dry vermouth from across the room.

Be well, my fiery scoundrels and libertines of the internet.

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #macbeth #shakespeare #mckittrick hotel #Maxim de Winter

I was wondering if you knew what music is playing during both the Sexy Witch/Boy Witch dance in the Telephone booths and the Boy Witch/Porter dance in the booths? They've been stuck in my head, but I can't figure it out!

This is a bit difficult to answer, as the music that plays during the phone booth dance is original to the show and is, as far as we can tell, unidentifiable as such.

We do know that, immediately before Sexy Witch joins Boy Witch at the phone booths, “The Window” and “The Porch” from Bernard Herrmann’s score to Psycho play in succession. This is during Sexy Witch’s delivery of the prophesy to Banquo in the sitting room of the lobby, during which she seduces him to sleep and sprinkles some fairy dust on him. Immediately afterward, however, the music shifts to a very low, humming, ambient piece that seems to consist of an endlessly repeated two-note figure. This ambient music is what accompanies the Sexy Witch/Boy Witch phone booth dance, as well as Boy Witch assault on the poor Porter. Interestingly enough, this same piece also accompanies the first confrontation between the Porter and Agnes Naismith (with the tea tray and the wad of cash).

All told, our final answer is simply “We don’t know.” However, seeing as all the other ambient music in the hotel seems to be heavily-altered, pieced-together sections of the songs and scores you hear elsewhere within the hotel, we’d lay money down that the piece of music you’re referring to is a very fuzzy, very slowed-down version of either the score to Psycho or Brian Tyler & Klaus Badelt’s score to the film Constantine.

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #mckittrick hotel #bernard herrmann

Two Birds with One Bone

Good evening, my dears. My, it has been a while, hasn't it? What with an overwhelming multitude of arrangements to be made, social engagements to keep, and hangovers to be had, I simply haven't had a moment to spare.

As you can imagine, getting sufficient beauty sleep has been of prime importance this last month or so, and I am delighted to report that my favorite hotel has been haunting my dreams during the month I spent away. During my most recent visit, I was struck by a vague feeling of déjà-vu as I watched the faces of its regulars, sometimes gay and laughing, but more often either distressed or painfully vacant, as they moved among the rooms, reenacting the stories I have witness so many times now.

I was especially drawn, and not for the first time, to a few of those eerie and coveted objects that move about the hotel with ease—those that floated across my darkest dreams during the last haunted month. I will refrain from repeating myself in my musings, as my husband and I have already recorded the cyclical journey that the blackbird's corpse takes each night, but that little birdie isn't the only morbid charm to be found making its way through the McKittrick. We have also spent some time with a little bird skull—complete with its spine intact and attached at the base of the skull—that is also traded between characters around the hotel.

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #mckittrick hotel #birds #rebecca de winter #sleep-no-more

To the Crack of Doom: Mirrors in the McKittrick Hotel

Apologies all around for the general radio silence from our front lately. I’ve been absolutely swamped managing the estate, and Rebecca, in usual fashion, has been on a mid-Atlantic cruise for the past month (where she was no doubt quartered on the “port” side).

Having been married to Rebecca for what seems like many agonizingly long centuries, and furthermore having allowed her to festoon our precious Manderley with innumerable self-portraits and looking-glasses, I have come to understand some very fundamental truths about vanity. I have also gotten very used to never showing up anywhere on time, as Rebecca has made an obsessive avocation of primping and preening in front of the mirror.

Then the thought hit me—about how important mirrors are to the décor, ambiance, and the stories within that home away from home of ours, the McKittrick Hotel. Please bear with us as we get back into the swing of things with this minor discussion on the significance of mirrors within the world of Sleep No More.

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #mckittrick hotel #macbeth #mirrors #superstition

I feel as if I've heard the song Moonlight and Shadows by Artie Shaw somewhere in the hotel but didn't see it in your most recent (and wonderful I might add) piece on the music of Sleep No More. Could I have heard it in the Manderley?

First of all, darling, I must say that a girl could get used to being interrogated anonymously. It's so much more exciting when it could be just anyone doing the grilling.

Anyway, I have to say, my love, that the song is unfamiliar to me. And my pretentious husband doesn't seem to have heard it, either, despite acting as though he’s got it all figured out. While we can say with confidence that it does not play on the first, second or fourth floors of the McKittrick, it is entirely possible that the song plays in Nurse Shaw's office (whose soundtrack we do not doubt is incomplete) or the Macduffs' Apartment (which has a small unaccounted-for gap that neither of us has investigated yet).

As you suggest, you very well might have heard it in the Manderley. There are a slew of great songs on loop in there (such as Marlene Dietrich's "Falling in Love Again" and "Blue River" by Jack Teagarden) that mesh so well with those heard in the show proper that it's sometimes difficult to distinguish where exactly one heard them.

All this notwithstanding, do we have anyone out there reading these notes and queries who has a better answer for our delicious guest?

The first who manages to come up with a correct answer gets a big kiss from me.

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #mckittrick hotel

All There Is: The Music of the McKittrick Hotel

Whenever she’s had a few too many, Rebecca is quick to remind me “Al Jolson is greater than Jesus,” and I don’t disagree. She knows I have an acute sensitivity to music and, between the two of us, we have a formidable collection of records in our library.

And because we are slaves, body and soul, to our hunger for all things McKittrick, our collection has come to include every piece of music played inside the hotel that we have been able to identify. We’d thought we’d take this opportunity to share this part of our collection with you.

What follows is an exhaustive list of all the incidental music that appears in Sleep No More, including notes as to the major action that accompanies each piece of music and, where applicable, very cursory analysis.

Before we go on, I would like you to please note a few things:

While we are confident that we have been able to accurately identify the pieces mentioned herein (as well as accurately noted their accompanying events), we cannot be absolutely sure that this list is exhaustive. So, if you feel as though we’ve missed one, please let us know!

I have neglected to include the few ambient pieces featured on the show (e.g. the low hum that rumbles through the labyrinth on the fifth floor; the low, two-note figure, that scores the first confrontation between Agnes and the Porter, itself most likely derived from a figure in the score to Vertigo; the twinkly, record-scratched music box piece that plays in the Macduffs’ apartment on a loop during quiet moments; etc.). This is for two reasons. Firstly, whereas I have identified with confidence the pieces listed herein, I cannot say the same for the ambient works, which are all but unrecognizable as heard in the show. Secondly, despite the fact that all the ambient pieces can be safely said to be original compositions arranged by the sound designers themselves, they are most likely derivative works (i.e. heavy distortions of brief samples of the music cited below—particularly the Bernard Herrmann scores), and therefore already are covered in some form herein.

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #mckittrick hotel #Maxim de Winter

Bird-Watching at the McKittrick, Part Two: Sleep No More

Hello, again, my lovelies. Whilst Rebecca has been off for two days now mucking about at God-knows-where (and with God-knows-whom), I’ve taken a sort of stay-at-home holiday. I’ve been taking my tea in the library, playing patience by the fireside, and riding through the estate with the vigor of a much younger man. I’ve even managed to get though a sizeable chunk of Samuel Pepys’ Diaries—I’m particularly partial to the scene in which Mrs. Pepys catches her husband “embracing” a scrumptiously young Deb Willet beneath her petticoat.

In any case, this essay is long overdue. I had begun many months ago to write on the bird motif as it appears in Sleep No More, only to stop short of actually mentioning the show at all. In the time since, my beautiful, impetuous hellion of a wife took it upon herself to help me with a bit of the legwork, but here I shall at last round out my discussion of birds.

Let’s get to it.

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #mckittrick hotel #Maxim de Winter #macbeth #birds

You remember: James sailed across the sea to marry Anne. On their way back, there was a terrible storm\...

Rebecca here. Some of you may have heard this story before—hissed through the musky darkness inside the McKittrick Hotel. Those who have may be familiar with the rather significant bit of history upon which the tale is based. For those of you who aren’t so familiar, I spent the better part of the last week cozying up to the fire in the Manderley library. I had Jasper and a bottle of rye keeping me company as I pored through our rather extensive collection of historical volumes, to find just the right bits to share with you.

The story above is a direct reference to an event that transpired during the proxy marriage between King James IV of Scotland (later James I of England) and Anne of Denmark, daughter of King Frederick II—an event that ignited James’ intense interest in witches and inspired Shakespeare (to whom the king was patron and sponsor) to create the three witches in Macbeth.

Tonight, my dears, I am recording each event or object in the McKittrick that relates to boats and shipwrecks, to illustrate the integral role that they play in this bloody story with respect to the common themes between Macbeth and Rebecca. I will begin by briefly recounting the key stories that weave the source materials together, before listing places inside the hotel where we notice suggestions of shipwrecks or boats, particularly in the hotel décor.

(Source)

(Please beware: this post contains a tiny bit of information regarding the Sixth Floor, so if you have yet to explore this part of the hotel, you may not wish to continue reading—or, you will at least want to skip over the seventh paragraph of section II).

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #mckittrick hotel #rebecca de winter #macbeth

In a hamlet or in a forest, in the deep water or on the dry land, wherever venerable persons dwell, that place is delightful.

Friedrich Max Muller

What a dazzling time last night was!

We met the Thanes of Glamis and Cawdor for drinks at Ovest. They brought us some fascinating gifts: a stone for each of us that, after selecting, the Thane of Cawdor researched to discover the powers ostensibly held by each. I received a Tiger’s Eye stone with mesmerizing gold and brown stripes that shift under the light, to bring financial gain (oh, goodie!) and help de-stress and focus the mind. Cawdor brought a Dalmatian Jasper for Maxim, to provide stamina, reduce discouragement and aid in memory retention–-goodness knows he (and I, frankly) needs all the protection against his apparent early-onset dementia he can get.

Later on, BloodWillHaveBloodTheySay came in with Caoine and another very sweet girl who had never been inside the hotel, and without hesitation offered us a choice among his lovely decorated masks. We tried to contain our excitement as we selected our color, as Maxim and I have coveted those masks for a long time. Maxim’s is studded in gold. Mine is a slick, translucent black.

When we got in the queue, we met FleepNoMore, who’s as handsome as a young Randolph Scott, and BrightEyesBigCity, who, in addition to being a very charming and sweet man, now has the distinct privilege of calling himself a New Yorker. Welcome home, sir.

WashThisBlood was there, looking as dashing as ever, as was akaJakeEdwardMarks, a man after my own heart. Maxim was not ashamed in the slightest to nerd out with them while on line, despite that there a few attractive women right behind who’ll, as a result, likely never see him as a viable sexual candidate. C’est la vie.

Both Maxim and I had a very fruitful stay. Maxim was finally Popped (about which I am a bit envious). I was finally blessed by Lady Macduff (played beautifully by Ms. Ockwell last night). Not a few minutes after I was being tempted with sweets by Ms. Chang’s Sexy Witch, Ms. Lugosch-Ecker’s lips grazed Maxim’s in the dark of the wardrobe (or so he tells me). We were both tempted to find a private room and relive our honeymoon in Marrakesh, but we’re not ready to be permanently evicted from the hotel just yet.

On the way out, I got to watch and giggle as Maxim was practically sexually assaulted by David Botana (in the show as Boy Witch last night). Maxim said to me "I would have consented, but that would have taken all the fun out of it." I'm not at all surprised.

After the show, Maxim and I got good and bladdered and managed to get through the night without a row, even though my husband didn’t seem to like the way I was glancing at Nick Bruder. Glamis also kindly introduced us to some other Tumblrers we’ve greatly admired but hadn’t had the pleasure to meet.

ToManderleyAgain had the energy and charisma of a young rake in his prime, while WhoKeepsWithWolves and SheWolf made an extraordinarily handsome couple. I couldn’t decide what I admired more: his beard or her dress.

All three were kind enough to pretend that my darling fool of a husband’s tactless brand of humor is actually amusing—and for that I thank them. You have made a man with no filter whatsoever very happy. And I, for my part, delighted in sharing laughter and insights over drinks with you fine people.

In closing, all of you are just the loveliest. We thank you for making last night so downright fun, and our hangovers this morning so worth it.

Have a wonderful and happy holiday. Cheers!

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #mckittrick hotel #rebecca de winter

Dream Cast

This is long overdue.

News about the general election saturated our headlines here, with Labour making big gains, though Baldwin’s National Government managed to hang on for the majority.

Rebecca, in fine form as ever, has spent the last month babbling on about tariffs and unemployment—no doubt all to be forgotten about in a week’s time—and I was desperate to shut her up about it. So I decided to take her to Florida. It had been a while since we’d visited Miami, and I thought the warm air would do us good. But alas, the bloody hurricane spoiled our travel arrangements and we’ve been stuck at home—each neck deep in liquor as if it were going out of style.

But now we are as ready as ever to resume publishing about all things McKittrick, and where better to start than with our dream cast?

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #mckittrick hotel #Maxim de Winter

Hi there, where do you find all of the magnificent books you use in your research?

As you may have noticed, most of the books we've cited are quite old. Some of them even predate Shakespeare. As such, a good proportion of them fall into the public domain. You may find many of them published on the Internet Archive or Google Books. Also, there are a number of facsimile editions available in print form on Barnes and Noble or Amazon. For some of the harder to find books, there is a slew of third-party publishers who print inexpensive, arcane public domain works, such as Forgotten Books.

Recently, Rebecca and I bought the indispensable three-volume edition of John Brand's Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, which we would recommend to anyone interested in the history of common charms and folklore.

On an unrelated note, Rebecca and I are aware of the unforgivable lapse in time since we last published an essay, for which we profusely apologize. However, we assure you that we have a few posts on the assembly line that are very soon forthcoming.

Stay safe, my darlings.

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #mckittrick hotel #Maxim de Winter

Hi. Do you know the name of the music played when you walk into the McKittrick and thru the dark maze?

It's the "Prelude" to Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much by Bernard Herrmann.

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #mckittrick hotel #rebecca de winter

Where and how do you find the sources you use in your analyses?

Since having checked into the McKittrick for the first time in May, Rebecca and I have unearthed a veritable library of information on witchcraft, Scottish superstition, and ceremonial magic. We’ve also uncovered a great deal of academic sources relating to the history of James I’s England and the composition of Shakespeare’s tragedies.

While we intend in the near future to publish a bibliography of sources cited in our blog, it should suffice for now to say that we are confident that a good proportion of our references were read (or at least accounted for) by the creators of the show themselves.

We began by reading through the many sources directly referenced in the show, such as A.W. Moore’s Folklore of the Isle of Man, a page of which located in M. Fulton Tailor’s, or R.H.J. Brown’s The Flight of Birds, which decorates the walls of Malcolm’s darkroom. If you look closely in Hecate’s apothecary, you will find a vintage edition of The Magus by Francis Barrett, as well as pages from Arthur Edward Waite’s Book of Ceremonial Magic.

After mining the show for cited sources, we expanded our search outward to sources directly mentioned by the creators themselves, either in published interviews, or in the program from the Boston run of Sleep No More, which cites largely to books and journals published by the Folklore Society of Great Britain, such as Notes on the Folk-lore of North-East Scotland and Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders. We also found some particularly useful information in the “Notes and Queries” sections of the Folklore Society’s quarterly periodical, the Folk-Lore Record (which later became the Folk-Lore Journal, and then simply Folk-Lore).

All told, we have been wary of including any additional sources that we weren’t confident either (a) directly inspired the creators in some fashion, or (b) had some very direct bearing upon the material presented in the show. With respect to the latter, for instance, my wife has recently purchased History of the Witches of Renfrewshire, a rather fascinating facsimile compilation of original accounts of the bewitchment of Christian Shaw and of the Paisley Witch Trials.

Rebecca and I are very lucky that Sleep No More is as dense and complex as it is, as it gives us an awful lot to chew on in terms of research and analysis—and more than enough to warrant the effort we have put in so far. Also, we are very pleased that we have had such a kind and enthusiastic readership as well, and we hope you continue to enjoy what we publish in the future.

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #Maxim de Winter #mckittrick hotel

bendemolina

Found in a high school English textbook:

Tanistry

Early Gaelic clans living in Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man chose their leaders using a succession system called tanistry. When a new king assumed power, the clan’s nobles would elect a successor, whom they called the tanist. This...

paisleysweets

Maxim here. There was a clever item in yesterday's gazette that Rebecca and I quite enjoyed, so we thought we ought to bring it to your attention.

The question of the historical Macbeth's legitimacy is something that Rebecca and I have been thinking about for some time now. As Bendemolina mentions, Scottish government at the time was not a hereditary monarchy. Under the principles of tanistry, Macbeth was elected king by the thanes, and duly anointed" (Orgel, Stephen. "Introduction." Macbeth. By William Shakespeare. New York: Penguin Group. 2000. xxxvii.). Accordingly, in Holinshed's Chronicles, from which Shakespeare derived the stories for a number of his plays, Macbeth not only has a legitimate claim to the Scottish throne, but he also has a genuine grievance against Duncan--things that are not mentioned in the play.

#Sleep No More #sleep no more nyc #mckittrick hotel #Maxim de Winter #macbeth

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