Plastic and Cheesy
Reviews from NYC and North Adams and some surprising upcomings
Hi there, everyone. Slightly slower few weeks for me due to school starting and large amounts of work, but I’ve got three reviews for you and a number of upcoming immersive events for your cultural edification, including one truly noteworthy (note: that does not mean good) one I never could have predicted. As always, I welcome your comments and takes on the material.
By the way, I talk about some of the pieces below (specifically Plastic Bag Store) in a NoPro podcast with very smart humans in an episode about “immersive after immersive” whatever we decide that means. Check it out if you want heady, pretentious takes on a bunch of quite silly work.
Reviews
The Story of Lot’s Wife - Given that this piece was $15, I’m not upset I saw it, but I think it was a good idea that fell short on execution. The concept was an installation piece in which you entered a curtained room by yourself and walked a hallway with artifacts, reading short written pieces and following instructions from a small book you received at the start. The theme is solid, exploring the idea of being an ally and the persecution of LGBTQ people historically, and the writing in the book is a pretty good set of meditations on the topic. The issue was that the artifacts you find in the piece aren’t well designed enough to hold your interest. It’s all really execution — I like the idea of looking at an object and reading framing text, but you have to have a better object than a few salt shakers or a pinned napkin to hold my interest. It’s an interesting structure for a piece that I think has potential, but when I’m looking at installation art, I’m looking at it equally as experience and as visual work. The Story of Lot’s Wife hit the former but not the latter.
The Keeper and the Fungus Among Us - This charming online escape room is run by Headlock Escape Rooms and it’s worth your time. It’s a kid-friendly stop-motion-feeling adventure where you help a legendary guardian thwart the evil plan of a fungus trying to infect a town. If you’ve never done an online escape room, this follows a standard formula where a character in the environment is waiting for your instructions and over Zoom you and your team tell the character what to do. What makes this work is that it’s so cute. The story is witty and warm in the right ways, the songs (yes, there are song numbers) are great fun, and the puzzles are just challenging enough to be interesting to the group. Nothing profound is happening here — it’s all at the level of a Sesame Street episode. But it’s no small feat to pull off the production of a live puppet show/escape room and Headlock has put together something special here. If you want to do something fun with your remote family, this is a good online experience to check out.
The Plastic Bag Store - The Plastic Bag Store is probably the most important piece of immersive work I’ve seen this year, not because it’s the best thing I’ve seen (it isn’t) but rather because its setting at MASS MoCA means that it’s likely the first immersive experience a whole new audience has witnessed. Robin Frohardt’s meditation on trash and what we pass on to future generations, The Plastic Bag Store is a film and immersive performance set in an installation space that’s a Meow Wolf-style riff on the role of plastic in our world. Overall, it’s a good piece. While I think the performances of the actors were unnecessary and weakened the work, the installation art was simply stunning and the film had an unexpectedly charming sense of humor that carried the more serious message about plastic very well. Forhardt does a great job pushing very depressing content through a very hokey (in the best way) set of jokes. What makes it so important to me is that it’s in a museum; the work absolutely fits within the scope of MASS MoCA’s interests and general curation, but it’s also without question an immersive theater piece. If you’re around that area or can be, I would check this piece out before it closes in early November. For many museum goers, this will be the immersive rabbit hole that starts them down this strange road and I’m curious about what those people will create.
Upcoming Immersive Shows
R.O.S.E. - Is an overpriced club? Is a snooty take on nightlife culture? Is an interesting art reflection on raves and dance freedom? Who can predict, but you know me well enough to know that I’m going to find out. This is the Park Avenue Armory’s latest immersive foray, created by artists Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar as a meditation on contemporary dance and nightlife. From what I can tell, professional choreography runs through an open, club-like space that invites you to dance as well. Is $65 too much for this? Maybe. But I’m seeing it on September 5th if you want a crew, and it runs until September 12th if another date is your fancy.
The Spirit’s Speakeasy - Heads up that I’m now going to the press viewing on September 18th, so unless it’s truly mindblowing I’m not going to see it a second time, but it’s $79 and runs until Nov 3rd if you’re interested. I’ll be posting a review immediately after I see it to help you decide.
Raiders of the Local Adventure - The next piece in the comic interactive theater work of Andrew Agress, this is a riff on the archeology-ish pulp action stories we know and love. It’s a pay-what-you-like experiment in interactivity, but I think Agress is always trying interesting things in this form. There are dates for the weekends through September 14th, and I’ll be checking it out on the 14th myself if you want company.
Speakeasy, Die Softly - This is in every possible meaning of the word the cheesiest thing I have heard of in immersive. It’s a murder mystery dinner theater game set in a “legitimate Italian restaurant” during the prohibition, hosted at Carmine’s in Times Square. I mean, come on. It’s a whopping $139, but you get to eat at Carmine’s as part of it, so … that’s worth it? This one is so iconic I think the NoPro NYC crew is going to do it together, but if you’re a sucker for immersive and you live in the Greatest City on Earth, how do you not see this one? Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll let you know when NoPro is going and if there are openings, but it runs until October 5th and depending on how this goes down, maybe I’ll even see it twice.
Squid Game: The Experience - I know what you’re thinking - “another cheesy marketing pop-up?!?” - but no less an immersive critic luminary than Noah Nelson (founder of NoPro) vouched for this one. Do I have to explain it? Just imagine what immersive Squid Game is and you’ve got it. I didn’t really watch the series (I prefer Parasite and Snowpiercer in Korean class fables myself), but this is hyped enough I’m not going to miss it, not to mention it’s game-focused and that’s my Venn Diagram if anything is. Oct 11th through March 9th, so we have time to plan, and only $39 a ticket. Who’s in?
Honor Bound - The first of a series of LARPs Sinking Ship Productions is running for the next few months, Honor Bound is a three-hour roleplaying experience about toxic masculinity through the lens of dueling culture. It’s by Randy Lubin and Jason Morningstar, the latter of which I can vouch for as a terrific roleplaying designer and good human. It’s expensive at $95 a ticket (it’s supposed to go up to $120 but hasn’t yet), but you can also get the season pass for five additional LARPs for $570. If you’re looking to see a more serious short-form LARP, this is a good starting place. It runs Sept 7th and 8th, and I’m seeing it on the 8th at 4pm.
That’s enough list for now. Let me know what you’re seeing and thinking and hope to see you around town soon.