House Of Secrets: ‘In Another Room’ Summons Up Spirits of the Ages
At the edge of LA’s Koreatown a new company emerges, setting a high bar from the get-go.
By now there’s a familiar pattern to the nights that I see one of those shows.
The shows that reshape the conversation, for me, about immersive theatre. What’s possible, who’s making compelling work.
It always starts with me going somewhere I haven’t been before. Usually a neighborhood that sets my urban defense system instincts in motion. Sometimes, like on the night that I went to the edge of Harvard Heights to see In Another Room, I get to see something I’d rather not see. On this night it was a shirtless man beating the hell out of a piece of cardboard against a fire hydrant.
Things like that throw me out of myself. They become a barrier to me easing into whatever the show has to offer.
So it’s all the more sweet when the show pulls me in completely. When it makes me forget the chaos — oh, the chaos — of the world outside its walls.
That’s when you know the value of immersive as a form. That’s what happened at In Another Room.
The premise is simple enough: a ghost hunting team has talked a home owner into letting them set up shop in the house that they used to live in, but can no longer rent out. The audience have been recruited to act as investigators for the team, who are allegedly watching by remote. After checking in with the team (the front of house staff) we’re told to meet up with the house owner, who is waiting in the driveway.
The young woman, Michelle, is there to answer any questions we might have — within limits — about the property. A back and forth reveals a dark history to the place, as Michelle spins her wary tale. This “scene zero” serves a double purpose: framing the piece and also giving any stragglers a chance to make it in before the group is loaded in. With just three audience members able to take part at a time, this shouldn’t usually be a problem. (But wouldn’t you know, someone’s ride was late on our night. Downside: they missed the full story and the other two of us got some things twice.)
This is executed well enough — it’s a storytelling job, with some light interactivity — but that’s not what we’re here for. Nor what the people who bought out In Another Room sight unseen are hoping for.
We’ve come for a haunted house — but not your run of the mill scare factory. We’ve come for an encounter with the strange and uncanny.
The creators of the piece have asked us to not reveal how many spirits we encountered during the course of our hour-plus exploration of the grounds. That’s fair. Discovery and surprise play into the milieu. However to give this the assessment it deserves I’m going to have to dive into some details, so consider yourself forewarned.
Structural Spoilers Ahead
A big part of any true immersive is the traversal: a piece can be a structured “dark ride” or a sandbox. Audience members can be kept together or broken up into smaller units. Action can play out linearly or work itself out in a series of loops.
The writers and producers of In Another Room (Aaron Keeling, Austin Keeling, and Natalie Jones) use the dark ride form to create a series of vignettes about people who have died in the house. The implication being that something sinister resides in the house itself, something that drives these people to destroy themselves and each other.
Now in less subtle hands this could be a hamfisted fright fest — and while there are a few well-timed jump scares for those who are susceptible to sudden sounds and other such shocks, this piece is far more rooted in theme and tone than tricks of the terror trade.
After an initial encounter in a central room, the audience is taken together through a series of encounters. Sometimes the spirits are aware of our presence, other times we don’t register at all. Each of these choices is clear through the behavior of the actors, and the scenes are so distinct from each other at times it felt like a series of short plays.
Yet the thematic ties are strong enough that the disconnected stories transcend the desire for a singular narrative and instead allow us to settle into the reality that something is very, very wrong with this house. Something that we probably shouldn’t persist in discovering, and yet find ourselves compelled to continue exploring.
There are two big reasons for that: a truly excellent cast — the members of which I have been asked not to single out in order to preserve an element of surprise, otherwise I’d be getting down into some pockets of raving — and the deft production design of Patrick Blanchard.
At points Blanchard’s design work feels like it is a mixtape of some of immersive’s big and small hits. The well traveled will find hints of Then She Fell and The Nest’s aesthetics worked in with elements that evoke elements of genre classics. It isn’t what you expect to find in the top floor of a duplex at the edge of Koreatown. At. All.
Meanwhile directors the Keeling brothers — fun fact: twins — have honed the work of their actors to create an ensemble that hits the sweet spot of immersion: cinematic acting that can fill a physical space. The kind of work that is so good it seems effortless, and thus betrays just how much effort has really gone into getting it just right.
The only thing wrong with In Another Room is that it is destined for a very short shelf life. The production team has staged this in their own home, with the generous patience of their landlord. Even a potential extension wouldn’t be able to push that many more people through.
As a calling card for a new immersive company that belongs in the regional — and maybe one day national — conversation, In Another Room is a gift from beyond. Keep watch on these folks.
In Another Room’s intital, sold out, run is scheduled through August 27th. The show takes place at an undisclosed location near Koreatown in Los Angeles. Tickets were $60.
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