You can skip the gym the day you take in the new show from Emursive, the enterprising theater company behind the long-running (more than twelve years) immersive show Sleep No More. For their newest production, they’ve pulled out the stops, providing an experience that, if it can’t quite be described as theater, is certainly…something. Bigger, more lavish and clearly more ambitious than Sleep No More, Life and Trust is also something of an endurance contest, lasting three hours and taking place on six floors of a financial district skyscraper. By the time you’ve finished attempting to follow its thirty characters involved in 250 overlapping scenes, you’ll have more than put in your steps.
I’m stressing the physical aspects of the show because that’s what the creators seem to have done as well. Set largely during the Gilded Age in Manhattan, the show “written” by Jon Ronson is a riff on the Faust legend, with large parts of The Picture of Dorian Gray thrown in as well. But after a scripted prologue in which small groups of audience members are invited into the office of banker J. G. Conwell and watch as he makes a deal with the devil on the eve of the 1929 Stock Market Crash, the storyline is barely discernible. Members of the press were sent information in advance describing the scenario and providing information about the dozens of characters, but even so, I found it almost impossible to tell exactly what was going on. Pity the poor attendees who don’t have a cheat sheet.
As you wander the labyrinth of rooms located on the six floors, you encounter various characters who mostly mime their way through their scenes and often launch into choreographed movement/dancing that requires impressive agility. Not just for the performers, but also for audience members who have to move quickly out of their way to avoid bodily injury. Sometimes you find yourself jostling to enter small spaces in which the action is taking place, other times you’re frantically sprinting through hallways or up and down staircases to follow the actors who seem to be auditioning for the Olympics.
Some of the scenes are impactful in a moodily atmospheric way, although unless you choose to follow one particular character you probably won’t have a clue as to the overall story arc. In any case, it’s all rather exhausting, especially since you’re required to wear a large mask that inhibits both your breathing and vision.
The show seems obviously designed for repeat viewings, which has the dual effect of enhancing the experience for attendees and juicing up the box-office as well. Younger people will no doubt relish the idea of going again and again, assuming they have the deep pockets to afford it (weekend tickets are more than $200, fees included).
If Life and Trust has a star, it’s scenic designer Grace Laubacher, who’s done such a superlative and herculean job creating so many different environments that you’ll find yourself humming the scenery, and the show isn’t even a musical (although it does have a nearly constant underscoring courtesy of composers Taylor Bense and Owen Belton). As you wander around, you enter offices, bedrooms, laboratories, a cinema, a boxing ring, a vaudeville house, bars, all outfitted with such an attention to detail that even there were no performers you could easily entertain yourself simply by exploring. The production is much more lavishly outfitted (which reminds me, Emilio Sosa’s costumes are fabulous as well) than Sleep No More, with the building, originally built in 1931 for a banking company, providing a built-in history.
It all culminates in an elaborately choreographed finale featuring all of the performers which has to be seen to be believed, complete with a final horrifying image that makes as little sense as everything that’s preceded it but won’t be erased from your memory anytime soon.
Life and Trust opened August 1, 2024, at Conwell Tower and runs through September 9. Tickets and information: lifeandtrustnyc.com
