I’ve seen plenty of shows that have left me in the dark metaphorically. But the new production from Punchdrunk, the theater company responsible for the long-running hit Sleep No More, is the first one that’s left me in the dark literally.
Viola’s Room — directed and conceived by the company’s founder and artistic director Felix Barrett — is similar to its predecessor in that it’s also immersive theater. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Whereas Sleep No More was a grand spectacle in which dozens of performers enacted scenes in front of large crowds of masked audience members, this show is experienced by groups of no more than six at a time. Instead of choosing where to go and which scene to watch, you proceed through a maze-like series of corridors and rooms, following the eerie instruction to always “Follow the Light.”
And this production features a linear storyline, adapted by Daisy Johnson from Barry Pain’s 1901 gothic short story The Moon-Slave. The text is gently whispered into your ear by Helena Bonham-Carter, at times so quietly that her delivery borders on ASMR, via headphones that you wear throughout.
It all feels a bit ritualistic, from the prelude in which you’re given a short briefing about what’s to come and (thankfully) assured that there will be no jump scares, to the moment in which you’re instructed to take off your shoes and socks, put them in a box labeled with your name, and don the headphones. By the time you stand in a corridor waiting for the signal to proceed, you feel like an astronaut about to board a space shuttle.
The narrative, delivered as a bedtime story about an orphaned princess, Viola, who becomes engaged to marry a prince only to experience some, shall we say, setbacks, is no great shakes. A sort of dark fairy tale with much made of Viola’s obsession with dancing and propensity to find herself in hedge mazes, it’s so abstract that you find yourself tuning out at times, concentrating more closely on making sure you don’t bump into your fellow attendees in the extremely cramped, dimly lit conditions. (Indeed, if you suffer from claustrophobia or a fear of the dark, this is definitely not the show for you. Also, heed the advice to wear comfortable clothing, since at various points you lay down on a thin mattress on the floor, and crawl on your hands and knees through a small passageway. The things I do for art.)
You venture through a seemingly endless series of fabric-lined corridors leading to small chambers featuring a variety of exotic, object-laden environments, such as a banquet room and a chapel. The whole thing is beautifully co-designed by Barrett and Casey Jay Andrews, with invaluable contributions by lighting designer Simon Wilkinson and particularly sound designer Gareth Fry, whose soundscape includes a selection of mood-setting, classic ’90s-era rock songs, including Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun.”
The sensory overload, which includes various scents, continues as you walk through the environments in your bare feet (don’t worry, they’ve been sanitized), with the surfaces ranging from soft and pillowy to gritty and sandy. At one point you have to squeeze through an extremely narrow space, providing the uncomfortable feeling of the walls literally closing in.
Viola’s Room, featuring no live actors, ultimately feels more like a fun house experience, lasting some 50 minutes, than a theatrical piece. Attendees’ mileage will certainly vary, with younger, more adventurous theatergoers, the ones who flock to immersive theater productions like the recent Life and Trust and The Death of Rasputin, the most likely to fully embrace its experiential aspects. It’s the sort of event for which you’re forced to make the choice to either be there or be square.
