Review Rundown: Discos & Dinners, Libraries & Hauntings; Basically Something For Everyone
LA, Chicago, and Vegas all represent this week in a dynamic edition (Five Reviews)
And just like that the Review Rundown is back with a banger.
Martin checks out DiscoShow in Las Vegas, Patrick hits up brand new work from Derek Spencer in Chicago, and the long-awaited return of Kathryn Yu to the Review Crew with THREE reviews including The Bureau of Nooks and Crannies from Andy Crocker, currently hidden about various LA Library branches and the latest from Nancy Baker Cahill.
We in it!
And keep an eye on these pages this week for a duet on Life & Trust in NYC.
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The Bureau of Nooks and Crannies — Andy Crocker for the Los Angeles Public Library
Free; Los Angeles, CA; through December 8 (with potential to extend)
There’s magic in the library. Maybe you already knew this. Maybe you figured it out as a kid. Maybe you told your parents and they didn’t believe you. Maybe you haven’t been back to the library since. Maybe you’ve forgotten that you can find magic there.
Well, you’re in luck, because that’s where The Bureau of Nooks and Crannies comes in, created by artist Andy Crocker, whose credits include Escape From Godot, Ghost Town Alive!, and Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser.
The culmination of a year-long residency, The Bureau of Nooks and Crannies invites library patrons to check out a free interactive experience kit at one of several branches scattered around the city (Atwater Village, Vernon, Baldwin Hills, Chatsworth, Lincoln Heights, Pacoima) or take part in a soundwalk, with one specifically tailored for the Central Library branch in Downtown LA and one which can be experienced at any of library’s 72 branches. And don’t expect any brainteasers or puzzles in these kits or audio guides; simply arrive with a sense of curiosity, a willingness to imagine, and about half an hour or longer to quietly explore and ruminate. (But remember to bring your library card!)
If you visit The Bureau of Nooks and Crannies at the Atwater Village branch, you might become a ghost haunting the stacks, feeling the calming motion of the breeze as you gently flip through the pages of a classic. You may also discover a secret hiding in plain sight in the encyclopedia section. If you visit the Lincoln Heights branch, you may be the only one who finds a secret residence for Teeny Tiny Beings despite patrons reading and studying all around you. You may then become a realtor for these Teeny Tiny Beings who are looking for a new home with very specific requirements.
Depending upon the kit, you may be asked to visit a section of the library you’ve never been to before. Or write down the first phrase on a page that tickles your fancy. Or run your finger across the shelf in a specific section until your intuition tells you to stop. To say too much more would be to spoil the surprise and delight of these exercises, which are surprisingly meditative and contain moments of quiet beauty performed entirely in public.
So if you want a little more whimsy, or a little more adventure, or a little more contemplation in your life, check out The Bureau of Nooks and Crannies at your nearest LA Public Library branch. And be prepared for another patron to ask you exactly what’s in that curious-looking wooden box. Of course, you already know the answer: it’s magic.
— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Exec. Editor Emeritus
DiscoShow — Spiegelworld
$99, Las Vegas, currently booking through Dec. 22
We are in the middle of an Immersive Renaissance of the Las Vegas entertainment landscape. Beginning in 2021 with Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart opening at the off-strip Area 15 complex, adventurous visitors had an alternative to the concept of a passive show. Then the Sphere came online, redefining the concert experience for those who could afford it. Earlier this year, Particle Ink made the move bringing their high tech blend of circus arts and projection based environments from the Arts District to the Luxor. Now the Spiegelworld team gleefully brings funky grooves to Immersive Dining and Entertainment with DiscoShow and the connected Diner Ross.
From the moment you step off the strip or casino floor through a mirror balled room, you are transported into the 70’s New York, going from a bar themed like a seedy downtown subway station to a pre show bar for the “GlitterLoft”, the main showroom. While the audience acquires pre show libations, some roller girls and boys start mingling while a DJ spins until we enter the GlitterLoft, the high tech palace of boogie. For the next 70 minutes, expect to boogie, groove, move your body and DANCE to three interlocking narratives about the rise of disco. The show begins with an oral history of Disco given by a Drag Queen we know as “Mother”, then there’s a movement story about a cadre of nightlife denizens in New York finding their community of dancing, and finally a series of interactive dancing lessons evoking the historic Finnish Disco teacher Åke Blomqvist. Scottish choreographer and director Stephen Hogget creates an expressive movement language that drives the narrative of the movement story as well as being simple enough for patrons with two left feet to feel comfortable on the dance floor. David Zinn’s designs take the compact space and make the dance floor both kinetic and spacious enough so that an audience of immersive neophytes can easily navigate when platforms are rolled on by the “Sanitation Department”. There are so many subtle touches within the design of the show that reward a deep knowledge of the disco movement that the entire creative team should be lauded, but frankly, you’ll have too much fun to notice!
Back when I reviewed Particle Ink this past April, one of my biggest concerns for Immersive entertainment taking over the Strip was how would the Bachelorette Party from Topeka take to a sandbox type show. That is not a problem with the DiscoShow. One could bring their teenage kids, their septuagenarian grandparents, and yes, that Bachelorette Party from Topeka and everyone would have a great time. Immersive entertainment is blooming on the Strip, and the DiscoShow will make it explode.
— Martin Gimenez, Reviewer at Large
Field of Flesh — Derek Spencer, Leisure, and Obras Foundation
$20 — $45; Chicago, IL; Through Sept. 28th
Field of Flesh is an experimental, participatory live immersive experience where audiences are guests invited to a dinner party hosted by an incredibly eclectic and eccentric family. As the things progress with dinner always being minutes away from being served, it becomes apparent nothing is what it seems, including how these “family members” are related to each other.
From start to finish, Field of Flesh is a gripping, aggressive experience, wasting no time in keeping the audience on their toes. Upon entering the space and seeing a theatrically elongated dinner table adorned with trinkets and oddities, the evening’s tone of mystery and concern is instantly set.
As family members move and interact with the seated audience, conversations are lighting fast yet captivatingly memorable. Each family member is profoundly struggling, the specters of mortality and death looming over them. Their pain, while theatrically exaggerated, is heart-wrenchingly human, prompting self-reflection within the audience. In covering a wide range of topics from self-help influencers to home hospice care, I realize how the fear of illness and death has permeated every aspect of modern living.
Yet Field of Flesh’s bold decision to throw the audience into the narrative deepend isn’t always a success. I’m still not quite sure who I was as a guest, as some interactions imply I’m the family’s matriarch while others identified me as “Mr. Host”. Everything is always changing, making it changeling to follow all threads. The family talking loudly over each other didn’t help. I wasn’t able to identify a piece of information or character dynamic to serve as a constant truth to empower or guide me through the experience.
Ultimately, I elect to lean back, trusting that the experience would, and did, come together in its end. But the audience member to my right spent most of the evening staring down, fiddling with items on the table rather than watching or listening to anything. I would constantly look around the table at the other audience members, each seemingly having very different and not equal experiences.
But is this not what dinner parties are; hectically crazy events where people are putting on airs to mask their persistent pains? Can we ever really know what our family and friends are thinking and feeling, even when sitting right next to them? Was I lost in Field of Flesh? Or was I the only one who understood what’s happening? Field of Flesh comes down to which of these questions you’re willing to live with being potentially left unanswered.
For audiences willing to make connections and draw their own conclusions, Field of Flesh is an aggressively fast-paced and thoughtfully bleak examination of the family unit and death. It’s a high risk, high reward experience that open minded, experienced audiences will find worthwhile.
– Patrick B. McLean, Chicago Curator & Remote Experiences Editor
Masq! a haunting — Downtown Repertory Theater Company
$80; Los Angeles, CA; Heritage Square Museum run concluded; at the Mountain View Mausoleum October 4–November 10
In this production about sickness, wealth, grief, and revenge, Downtown Repertory turns the grounds of the Heritage Square Museum — composed of eight landmarked structures across 10 acres of land — into the Republic of Venice for the evening. We are all partygoers who arrive during the festival of Carnevale, where everyone wears a Venetian mask, so you don’t know exactly who you’re conversing with, be they priest or prostitute.
The dialogue in Masq! a haunting, while heavy-handed at times, quickly lays out the plot in broad strokes: there’s a young man returning to his family’s estate and taking his rightful place in politics while still mourning the loss of his sister; his wife laying out her plans to use his influence for the good of the downtrodden; and whisperings of foul play when it comes to the sister’s death a year ago — did she willingly enter a plague-infested house, or, perhaps, did someone trap her there?
The big set pieces in Masq! take place in the largest building at the Museum, where the audience is seated in a large oval. But for the most part, the audience is separated and taken into the individual Victorian-Era homes of the Museum to witness smaller, more intimate scenes, in living rooms and parlors. These small groups are continually broken apart, scrambled, and reformed during the show. Those who are lucky enough to experience a 1:1 moment are gifted a mask and it seemed as if most people received one (though I spied some folks without masks at the very end, so your mileage may vary).
However, the casting of the audience was opaque to me. The onboarding to the experience consisted mainly of some basic rules (no drinks inside the historic homes, no sitting on the furniture) and lacked a quick beat to even just set our roles and manage expectations. I had to wonder why I, a random Carnevale attendee, might be privy to a hushed conversation between lovers or the conspiring of politicians. For the most part, the audience remains a silent witness in Masq! which makes the occasional interactive moments a tad bit awkward.
The layout of this venue can be challenging to work with as a performer walks a group from one historic home to another; the show fills this dead time with actor improvisation, asking the audience if they have visited other cities in Italy, which helps fill in the silence. I also appreciated the company’s ability to do a fair amount with few resources, such as making the most of a large “painting” of one of the characters (a digital screen), as well as using some clever visual effects and makeup choices. But overall, Masq! felt more like a solidly-performed play I was watching than a world I was a part of.
— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Exec. Editor Emeritus
SEEK — Nancy Baker Cahill
Starting at $22; Los Angeles, CA; Ongoing
It’s difficult to talk about Cosm, the new “experiential hub” adjacent to SoFi stadium which opened earlier this year, without making comparisons to Sphere in Vegas. When examining both, one’s attention naturally is drawn to the technological wonders that can be achieved with an enormous, impressively high resolution wraparound screen; however, unlike Sphere’s revolving door of Dad Rock band residencies (yes, there, I said it), Cosm’s chosen wheelhouse is the broadcast of live sporting events as well as the screening of curated art films such as the magnificent SEEK by Nancy Baker Cahill.
As someone who was lucky enough to witness the fantastic spectacle of U2 at Sphere several months ago, I hesitate to compare the two a little since the viewing experience is so different. Cosm is a much smaller capacity venue with a greater emphasis on food and drink and socialization, not a rock arena for the digital age. In fact, I very much appreciated Cosm’s comfortable seats, attentive wait staff, and, well, sense of intimacy; I felt much more connected to the “screen” at Cosm than I did at Sphere. Whether or not that’s a good thing depends on your point of view.
All that being said, if you have even the slightest bit of curiosity about Cosm or domes, carve out some time in your schedule for SEEK. An added bonus: the “cheap seats” start at $22 for this half hour film and you’re encouraged to explore the facilities before and after your screening.
The imagery in SEEK is creative, beautiful, and compelling. The editing is exquisite. The film plays tricks on your mind: is the venue spinning or am I spinning or is it all a trick, you may ask yourself. SEEK invites viewers to draw their own connections by showing you a series of seemingly unconnected scenes.
But, spoiler alert: a film that delves into the beauty of natural phenomena has a message, albeit not one that hits you over the head. Instead, you may look upon an amazing vista and realize that the camera is slowly panning over a dried up coral reef as a storm takes over the screen. Other scenes turn discarded plastic water bottles (literal trash!) in a desert landscape into something majestic but also something horrifying at the same time. With SEEK, Nancy Baker Cahill proves, perhaps paradoxically, that technology — in the right hands — can be used to connect us back to nature.
— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Exec. Editor Emeritus
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