![]() The way the evening was starting, it seemed plausible that we had actually traversed space and time in that old elevator and were now somehow in the past. ![]() We were now in something like a lobby, perhaps in a nineteenth century hotel. When the door opened, the footman offered only a benign, unhelpful suggestion to enjoy our evening. Few of us spoke, and those who did, did so in hushed tones. We filed into an enormous freight elevator without question. “Right this way, please,” a well-dressed footman said, addressing us collectively. About the time she arrived, a few others looking similarly perplexed began to congregate in the same spot, at which point the green door gradually opened. With no indication that we were in the right place, we paced for a few minutes before walking around the block and then up on the High Line while we waited for Jocelyn. S instructed, my wife and I arrived at precisely 5:00pm in front of a large, unmarked green loading door in the middle of an unlit city block. Which means I called and RSVPed for the secret happy hour. But I was alive and in New York and here before me was an opportunity to experience a potentially elating-not to mention beautiful and possibly also very terrifying and messy-piece of art. Had I inadvertently purchased us tickets to an interactive performance of Eyes Wide Shut?įor the record, I’m not objectively against attending a crazy underground sex play in Chelsea after eating a nice Italian meal and enjoying a few glasses of wine-I just didn’t know how that would play out in my marriage or at work, let alone in my head. It seemed as though I might have accidentally signed my wife and I up for some sort of underground sex play-with my coworker. To receive an enigmatic email from the venue inviting me to a covert happy hour only confirmed, and then augmented, the nervousness I was feeling about the whole thing. THIS IS GOING TO BE AMAZING.” and “Sorry / you’re welcome.” And then there were the articles she forwarded recommending that we hold any eye contact we make with the actors, as the results might include drinking unknown liquids, being swept into hidden rooms, and getting kissed by strangers. My wife and I were attending the play with and at the suggestion of my coworker Jocelyn, who, in the days leading up to the show, had been sending us texts like: “WE GET TO WEAR MASKS!” and “We might all get split up? Or something. On the afternoon of the show, I received an email from the theater inviting me to a secret happy hour before the performance. ![]() And the dazzling spectacle that I not only witnessed, but rummaged through, ran in and out of, and submerged myself in for close to three strange, dark, invigorating hours. And the mask that I wore for the duration of the performance. It probably had something to do with the absinthe. Recently saw Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More, now playing at the McKittrick Hotel in New York. In “Sleep No More,” audience members can be alone one moment, in the middle of the action the next.
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