Capping two hours in which a number of narratives threads wind throughout all four floors of The Peale Center, all characters and audience members converge for this climactic sequence.
Excerpted from 'HT Darling's Incredible Musaeum' by Submersive Productions
Performers: Francisco Benavides, David Brasington, Trustina Fafa Sabah, Sarah Olmsted Thomas, Jess Rassp, Lisi Stoessel, Alex Vernon
Directed by Glenn Ricci, Lisi Stoessel, Susan Stroupe
Mastodon Fabrication: Francisco Benavides, Jess Rassp, Ursula Marcum
Costume Design: Stephanie Parks
Lighting Design: James Johnson
Sound Design: Glenn Ricci
Created by Ensemble
Immersive theatre company Punchdrunk is hard at work on its next major production. And it'll be quite unlike anything that's gone before
I’m sure this will be an unpopular opinion. Most of my opinions aren’t popular, though, so I’m used to it. This post is long, and I doubt many of you will read it, which is also completely fine. Like so many of you, I read this article about the next direction Punchdrunk is taking. But unlike so many of you - I’m absolutely excited.
And I say this as an ambivert at best. Despite my loud (and foul) mouth, I’m most comfortable being alone, preferably in my own head. Perhaps this is the natural byproduct of being an only child for nine years, or being left largely to my own devices for my entire childhood. Being singled out makes me uncomfortable. The thought of people watching me makes my skin crawl. The idea of doing anything even remotely adjacent to performing in front of others is call for a full-blown panic attack.
What made me fall in love with Punchdrunk in the first place was that it pushed me outside my comfort zone. The memory of stepping off the McKittrick Hotel elevator for the first time is crystal clear. I was alone in the Macduffs’ apartment, headless baby dolls on one side, a graveyard on the other, no living souls to be found, and the answer to the question, “What do I do now?,” even more scarce. After quietly panicking and seriously contemplating asking the stoic black mask how to get the hell out of this madhouse, I had a realization - nobody was going to give me the answers. Inaction would not serve me here. I could shrink away, or I could jump in. So I jumped. It was terrifying and exhilarating.
The deeper I dove into Sleep No More, the more my boundaries were pushed. What if I did something wrong? What if I stood in the wrong place? What if I got in the way of the actors or the choreography? What if I looked foolish in front of the other audience members? What if I looked foolish in a 1-1? What if, what if, what if. Then...what if I believed I could do this? What if I trusted that I was capable of being in this space without being wrong? What if I was just as able as everyone around me to engage and interpret and appreciate this beautiful and bizarre creation? The greatest gift Sleep No More has given me is the belief that I am capable.
Four years later, Sleep No More is a comfort and a joy. Going back is like being wrapped in a warm, soft, murderous blanket. My brain craves repetition, so re-tracing those character loops makes my heart sing in its own special way. But as dear to my heart as Sleep No More is, and will always be - it no longer challenges me. Of course I see new variances and interpretations (to the extent they are permitted) in portrayals of the McKittrick’s residents. It’s still beautiful. It still makes me cry. But there is no more grand, sweeping, literally breathtaking sensation of, “Oh god, what is this and what do I do?”
I find myself asking, “What’s next?” One answer to that question was found in Baltimore, home of Submersive Productions and their recently-ended HT Darling’s Incredible Musaeum Presents: The Treasures of New Galapagos, Astonishing Acquisitions from the Perisphere. Musaeum is smaller in scale than Sleep No More, but dare I say, more lovingly crafted. Though not as grand and sweeping, or dark and murderous as Punchdrunk’s endeavors, Musaeum pushed me in ways Punchdrunk has not. There are no masks. You are spoken to - frequently, directly, publicly, privately - and responses are expected. In the Musaeum, I was no longer able to hide behind the shield of the Punchdrunk tropes, comfortable in the knowledge that at most I would have to nod my head or point at something. Musaeum required me to think on my feet, to be brave, to engage with the story in a new terrifying and exhilarating way. My security blanket was missing. So again - I could shrink away, or I could jump in. And again, I jumped.
So why can’t technology be part of what’s next? I think people are reading a bit too much into the Wired article (focusing more on some key phrasing used by the tech-oriented author than on what Felix Barrett actually said.) Nowhere in that article did I see Felix Barrett saying Punchdrunk’s future shows will consist entirely of staring at phones. I do not believe actors will be replaced by technology. The phone is a tool. Just like the mask is a tool and the looped storytelling structure it a tool. They’re all tools in different ways. We’ve all been salivating at the idea of Punchdrunk Travel since we were teased with its mention years ago - did we really think that could be achieved without technology?
I also don’t see anywhere in that article where Felix Barrett says other people should stop making the kind of immersive theater we already know and love. He’s not stopping anyone. He just doesn’t want to do that same thing any more. He’s an artist and a human, he’s growing and changing, he wants something new, he wants to push his limits and ours. Would I love to explore six different worlds all crafted on the same mechanism as SNM and TDM? Absolutely. But I cannot fault him for not wanting to sing the same tune with different words forever. Someone on the Punchdrunk Lovers Facebook group cracked a “joke” about demanding a board meeting with Felix in the wake of this news. As much as we have fallen in love with what he has made - he does not owe us anything. If you don’t like what he’s making, by all means, don’t attend, don’t give him your money, don’t donate to the company. But don’t take a, “How dare he?” attitude. Nobody is required to make you the art you want.
I think it’s incredibly offensive to say that Punchdrunk “accidentally created beautiful works of art whilst attempting to create gimmicks and games.” SNM and TDM are astonishing and intentional and pushed limits when they were created. Ten years ago, I don’t think many people in the theater community would have believed the mechanism of Sleep No More or The Drowned Man would work. Plenty of people still think it’s a gimmick. (And let’s be honest with ourselves, plenty of people treat attendance at Sleep No More or Drowned Man as a game, but that’s another conversation.) When people heard Musaeum incorporated puppets, many people dismissed that idea as ridiculous and juvenile. But if you actually went and saw the show, I dare you to have spent five minutes with the Ice Picker Bird and not felt a tug on your heartstrings as she searches for her babies. All these things we’ve come to love were once new and foreign and absurd and uncomfortable. So why are we unable to give this new idea a try? Why are we certain it will be bad, when we’ve never done it? (I hear the Kabeiroi objectors warming up in the wings - by all reports, that experience was not perfect, and perhaps should not have been billed as a new show. But just because that particular experience had flaws does not mean Punchdrunk’s entire future plan is doomed to be miserable.)
I don’t see the incorporation of technology as mutually exclusive with human connection. Punchdrunk helped so many of us remember that there’s magic in the world - now they want to use technology to literally take us out into the world. While I will always love the idea of the theater as a sacred and mystical space, I also relish the thought of the entire world becoming that palette. I DO want to go outside and run around and hike across London and get caught in rainstorms. I want to get lost and found and kidnapped and frightened. I want my limits pushed. This is not playing on “simple fear.” It’s the electricity of the unknown. Four year ago, I would not have believed I could handle something like Sleep No More. But even though he does not know me, even though I have never laid eyes on Felix Barrett and probably never will, he had faith in me that I could handle it. He said, “You can do this,” and pushed me out the door. He changed my view of the world - and of myself - when I stepped off that elevator four years ago. And I have faith in him that he will astonish me with whatever is coming next.
My only regret about H.T. Darling's Incredible Musaeum is that I was only able to attend once. I feel like I barely scratched the surface, after learning about many trap-doors and back stories during the usual post-show debrief at a bar after and at brunch the next day. Everything clicked: the space, the performers, the puppetry, the sound. So much talent and story packed into that building!
Better yet, it seemed to be the weekend when immersive enthusiasts from all over were visiting. It was good to see friends from the McKittrick, and to meet new people too for the first time outside of Tumblr. Howdy, y'all.
Sometime tonight, pressing past 7:30 in Baltimore, clusters of people will gather, (im)patiently waiting entry, incipient patrons of a truly incredible Musaeum...
H.T. Darling's Incredible Musaeum, and even only a solitary visit yields treasures
Puppet mastery and story-telling magic, immersed in more than one world, over-and-under lands of spirit and possibility, joy and heartache, inhabited by characters I truly did not want to leave
If you have tickets, hold them tight, hold them dear; if you don't, make all haste, and perhaps a deal with a devil or two - portals to the New Galapagos are rare, and likely won't stay open forever...but this journey is not to be missed
"What was so engaging about H.T. Darling’s Incredible Musaeum as a viewer was its lack of terms, a requirement of openness from the audience and a willingness to engage. The setting itself is so much of the experience that it dictates the way people act. I was asked my adopted name multiple times along with various other questions throughout the night, and I heard fellow audience members adapt accents from bygone eras in their responses."
