‘The Sleepy Hollow Experience’ Welcomes Newcomers to the World of Immersive (Review)
Brian Clowdus Experiences gently introduces audiences to what makes immersive theatre great
Immersive friends, do you ever get tired of explaining what you do on your nights out to friends and relations? “No, no, it’s not that weird,” has become a bit of a refrain in my life, as I go to more and more immersive shows. Among my office-mates, I’ve begun attracting comparisons to Stefan, Bill Hader’s Saturday Night Live character, cheerleading New York’s hottest (and most surreal) attractions. Sometimes even I worry I sound like him when describing a new show I’m about to check out. Picture his hand pyramid now: “New York’s hottest show is “immersive.” It’s got everything! Whisper waif ASMR, one-on-ones, in-universe poisoned cocktails, and a slide!” No matter the reality, imagination often places immersive theatre as strange and deviant. Even my own mother, an ardent reader of No Proscenium (thanks, Mom) seems reluctant to actually go to an immersive production. From what people know, or believe they know about immersive, a certain wariness makes sense. I’ve asked plenty of friends unfamiliar with immersive theatre what comes to mind when I mention Sleep No More, and their mental image reads as a cross between Eyes Wide Shut and a haunted house. They don’t know about the beautiful dance scenes, or the intimate connections that can be made, but they all somehow know about the infamous “orgy” scene. I think the average theatre-goer sees immersive theatre as something for 20-somethings interested in the fringes of “polite” art.
Brian Clowdus Experiences’ The Sleepy Hollow Experience provides a counterbalance to all that. It’s a perfect foil to that belief that immersive can only be wordless, avant garde dance with lots of violence and nudity (not that there’s anything wrong with that when it is the case). The production is a gentle, charming introduction to everything appealing about the art form, one that’s suitable for families and audiences of all ages. Mixing elements of site-specificity, promenade play, conversational improvisation, and traditional theater, The Sleepy Hollow Experience makes a compelling case to audiences who may be less familiar with immersive theatre to dive deeper.
Although the production has toured across the country, I was lucky to see it at one of its more fitting venues: Washington Irving’s Sunnyside estate, just a few miles from the real life Sleepy Hollow, NY. The aesthetics of the piece are gorgeous: winding paths lit by candles lead you from scene to scene, all aglow with moody uplighting. The path winds past the house itself, to an amphitheater done up as a miniature schoolhouse, to a fairy light-bedazzled maypole that serves as the venue of Katrina Van Tassels’ Harvest Ball, all culminating at the dark, somber bridge where Ichabod Crane meets his ultimate fate. The overall effect turns the estate into a cross between Grand Guignol and Are You Afraid of the Dark? The costuming and makeup team continues the direction, with antique, patchwork-looking costumes and pale pancake contoured makeup which emphasizes everyone’s brows and cheekbones to cartoonish proportions. At first, the dramatics seemed almost distracting, but the decisions made here have the cumulative result of a sort of theme-park gothic atmosphere, removed just enough from reality to keep audiences feeling safe, but deliberately exaggerated to evoke the penny dreadful shivers of the source material. The small details of the experience were spectacular: off of a main stage, in the upstairs window of a darkened house, a ghostly face hovered in a window for anyone whose attention wandered. I spent the rest of the night jumping at shadows along with Ichabod after seeing this figure, convinced that after having made eye contact, the actor playing the spirit would soon pop up behind me.
Audience interactions are light in The Sleepy Hollow Experience, consisting primarily of pre-show conversations and opportunities to mingle during intermission. A small, but consistently delightful opportunity to talk with actors was presented during each scene transition, as the actors walked alongside you making small talk. As Ichabod Crane entered one scene, scolding us all and lightly tapping our knees with a birch branch, I quickly sat up as indicated; for the rest of the evening, he would call me out and point to me as a “gold-star pupil” for following orders.
That sort of connection would pay off as the story hit its climax later on, forging a simple yet effective bond of empathy between myself and Crane, which gave the ghoulish, melodramatic proceedings real emotional weight.
Music within The Sleepy Hollow Experience also served as a nice bridge between traditional and immersive theatre. All the actors also played instruments, leading renditions of period folk songs. While most theatre-goers are familiar with hearing a cast sing, the songs shifted from merely scene-setting to in-universe as the play went on. The audience was quickly brought into the storyworld by the actors, as we were invited to sing along, taking the roles of drunken fellow partygoers, church congregants, or the aggrieved students of the local schoolhouse. It was a treat to just watch the audience slowly growing more comfortable interacting and sing along during the show, becoming familiar with being a part of the action as opposed to just observing.
Of course, when people think of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the climax is the first thing to mind. The Headless Horseman, galloping on a jet black stallion after the hapless Ichabod Crane, vanishing him with barely a trace. This is the scene destined to become The Sleepy Hollow Experience’s signature moment.
Sometimes, when you see a piece of theatre, you see a stage illusion so mind-boggling that you can’t possibly fathom how it was accomplished. Here, it’s obvious how it’s accomplished from a technical standpoint, but its thrill comes in the show’s sheer audacity. They simply have an enormous performer ride a black stallion through the scene, galloping straight at an actor. Again, the staging is as safe as can be, with the audience tucked behind stockades which mimic the sides of the fateful bridge from the story, but it still feels absurdly dangerous. That simulated danger, the sense of being on the precipice of the threats of another world, is the perfect cap to an immersive performance, particularly if it’s your first one. For newcomers to the form, this is just the slightest taste of the adrenaline rush that immersive excels at.
If you, like me, have struggled to introduce your friends and loved ones to a new, scary art form, something like The Sleepy Hollow Experience is a great way to do it should the production return next year to upstate New York. If it does, I’ll fill a thermos of warm cider, convince my friends and perhaps my Mom to come out, and watch them and her get the thrill of getting to briefly visit the world of an immersive story. I’m not a gambling man, but I’m reasonably willing to bet they’ll dive into the show knowing they’re safe, and understanding that there’s a place for all tastes in the world of immersive theatre. I hope they too get the chance, as I did, to sing along with the cast, chit chat with Katrina about the social world of the Hudson Valley, and jump at shadows scared of the Headless Horseman around each bend. Who knows? I got hooked into immersive after a friend dragged me to my first performance; maybe having a dozen The Sleepy Hollow Experiences traveling around the country can birth the next generation of immersive creators, new voices that only need an invitation into our world before they can create and invite us into theirs.
The Sleepy Hollow Experience has concluded and will return next fall.
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