I had breakfast recently with Nick Hytner, head of Great Britain’s National Theatre. He’s in town checking up on the National’s production of “War Horse,” which opens Thursday at Lincoln Center.
It’s a terrific show, and it will — you read it here first — win the Tony this year for Best Play.
Hytner suggested I check out something called “Sleep No More,” a loose adaptation of “Macbeth” created by the London-based theater company Punchdrunk.
First staged in an abandoned London schoolhouse, “Sleep No More” unfolds at an old warehouse in Chelsea.
For the purposes of the play, the warehouse has been transformed into the McKittrick Hotel, which film buffs will recall as the hotel in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.”
This is site-specific, non-narrative theater. Audience members are required to wear masks as they wander from room to room watching actors perform wordless scenes and interpretative dances.
Call me Mr. Middlebrow, but when I go to the theater, I want a plot, a proscenium arch and a seat.
But when Hytner, the director of “The History Boys” and “London Assurance,” says something’s worth checking out, you check it out.
And so I trooped over to deserted 10th Avenue and 27th Street the other night to see “Sleep No More.”
I planned to stay 20 minutes, but ended up staying the full two hours. I would have checked into this sublimely creepy hotel for the night but for the fact that when the show’s over, you’re herded to the bar.
I call your attention to “Sleep No More” because the word of mouth is so strong that its limited run (it ends May 14) is nearly sold out.
Among in-the-know theater people who’ve already been (wearing white masks, so nobody would have spotted them) are Trey Parker, Kim Cattrall, Liev Schreiber, Kevin Spacey, Scott Rudin, John Guare, James Franco and Amy Adams.
“Sleep No More” takes place in nearly 100 rooms, all decked out in astonishing period detail from the ’30s and ’40s.
The creators of the show, Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle, scoured antique shops from Miami to Boston for their props. There are telephone booths in the lobby with black rotary phones that still work. In the dining room are ashtrays, table settings and monogrammed cloth napkins from the “McKittrick.” Behind the bar are old bottles of wine and scotch, many unopened.
Some of the rooms are crammed with the trappings of the taxidermist: stuffed birds, snakes, deer and buffalo heads. Other rooms, the scariest ones, are medical offices full of old and sinister-looking surgical tools.
You can play with the props. I came across an old Underwood typewriter and banged out “what’s done is done” on old, yellow McKittrick stationery.
I had so much fun fooling around with the props, I nearly forgot about the play.
Until Macbeth ran by me covered in blood.
I followed him into a bedroom, where Lady Macbeth undressed him and bathed him in a giant porcelain tub.
If you want to follow what there is of a plot, pick an actor and stick with him or her throughout the evening. You’ll see bits and pieces of “Macbeth,” including the harrowing banquet scene.
But I think it’s more fun to explore the McKittrick on your own.
With a mask on, nobody knows who you are — or what you might do with those sinister-looking surgical tools.