Maybe it was the drinks beforehand.  Or else, the dark hallways and dim lighting, giving way at other times to piercing spotlights and strobes.  Definitely the smells contributed… food gone bad; the rank, dirty bathroom smell of some of the rooms; and even the pine scent of the large auditorium filled with evergreen trees.  Mostly, it was the overwhelming visual stimulation: so much to see: the room décor, pictures,writing, books, the odd details; and the omnipresent religious and spiritual imagery.  As in Venice, after a day of visiting glass shops, certain colors and images kept repeating on me long after I’d shut my eyes for the night.  But more than anything, I believe, it was the fatigue of a Friday evening after a busy week, and then three hours of hurrying along dark hallways of an old abandoned school chasing performers to the next scene, that finally got to me, got under my skin and into my unconscious.

            The Punchdrunk production of Sleep No More gave me an uncomfortable night’s sleep,as I know it’s done to others. And that, of course, is the point of it: to explore nightmare experience, the symbolic and chaotic nature of it, as well as the deeper meanings which cannot always be understood in daytime, but nonetheless are a product of waking hours. Incorporating elements of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Hitchcock’s films,there are dancing trees, banqueting ghosts, a cruel, psychotic maid and a detective. The action is stylized, and mostly silent, taking place in over forty rooms that are filled with mind-bogglingly detailed sets, yet in no particular order or relation to each other. The audience is no passive group sitting and stretching; instead, they are masked voyeurs, watchers of the action, who may at times be drawn in, by a touch, a word, a whisper.  It’s unsettling to have no program, no clear beginning or end; and it’s stimulating, to try to see how much you can see, putting together what might have happened or must have happened. 

            I came to the show with a group of four, and after the first ten minutes, we never met until the end. Each of us had a different experience; none of us saw everything or even much of what the others had seen.  I came prepared, as I try to do, with my knowledge of Macbeth and passing familiarity with Hitchcock, and was totally disoriented for a good deal of the time.  There were no medieval Scottish lords, nor cackling witches, although there were birds, many, many birds.  Instead, the ladies and gentlemen were dressed in perhaps 1920’s or Edwardian style; and yet lords they were, and ladies, the rich, the powerful, the entitled, and perhaps that’s all there is to know: that the cost of power, like poverty, is bad sleep.

            I pondered, in the middle of the night, what is the difference between horror and tragedy, the Shakespeare and the Hitchcock? From college days, I remembered that tragedy entails a fall from greatness, i.e., power and nobility of character, and is caused by the protagonist’s own actions —whereas, horror is often the unaccountable terror that happens to normal, everyday people. In Sleep No More,Macbeth has it all: part of the ruling elite, victorious in battle, rewarded by his King, intelligent wife, freedom of will and choice. He does not murder his King for the sake of liberty or to throw off some cruel despot. It is the witches –  feared and reviled – with the psychological insight of outsiders, who plant the idea of “more” into Macbeth’s mind, without which he might returned home an honored, satisfied man.  Instead, a nightmare is set in motion, sacrificing his own happiness and that of the society in which he held a high position. Only, Macbeth doesn’t recognize this, since the witches have foretold his “fate, destiny”, so he is also an innocent in the midst of a bloody horror tale.  Those women, they got him good,and leave him hanging, literally, at the end.

            Strangely, it doesn’t matter at all whether you know the first thing about Macbeth, or Hitchcock. Everyone brings to the show their own preconceptions and misconceptions.  I went in my plaid dress and red shoes (ruby red, for the Wizard of Oz, in case I had to get out quick),but there was no Scottish accent to the show. Instead, it’s based most purely on the fundamental principle of “theatre” – agreement between audience and performers, that this is made up. Beyond that, everything is up for grabs.