It's pretty dark, so don't worry about dressing to impress. Just wear something comfortable. And yes, it can get quite warm, though some of the rooms were a bit chilly as well.
It's a weird, fairly warehouse-y neighborhood but I did a lot of research on casual food/drink places nearby and we ended up going to one of the places I found afterwards and it was really good. Basically a casual pub but with food that's quite good and reasonable food/drink prices. A good amount of seating too so we were able to get seated right away (though we went AFTER we did the first entrance of SNM on a Saturday, so we got there around 11:00.) Anyway, here's the info:
Half King Bar 505 W 23rd St # A New York, NY 10011-1107 (212) 462-4300 thehalfking.com
Hecate was the woman in the long red dress. The witches...are all over the place. lol. If you saw a trio of two women and a man, with one of the woman bald, those were the witches. The other female witch my night was Asian, but depending on what cast you saw, she could've been someone else.
Yes, dress comfortably. Shorts are fine. Be prepared to be going up and down staircases and running all over the place, especially if you follow characters around. It can also get pretty crowded at points; I know I had to take off my jacket and carry it around.
Re: eats nearby. The BEST meal you could have is right across the street from the theater there on W 27th! It's called Ovest Pizzoteca at 515 W 27th. The gourmet pizza is phenomenal, like something you'd get in Rome or Naples, but with combos of toppings that are out of this world. Lots of wine choices and great deserts too-- but you don't want to get all that filled up since you're gonna spend the next 3 hours racing around the 6 floors of the McKittrick. And yes, it's really warm inside the hotel.
One last question. I realize there will be a lot of stair-climbing, walking, etc. but I had a leg injury wherein I can go up/down stairs, but need to go kinda slowly. Also, due to that and a bad back, I get really uncomfortable having to stand for a really long time. It sounds like one CAN go at one's own pace, and sit down on set pieces too. Or it so frenzied that I am going to be on my feet for 3 hours and miserable?
gym: to add to what Blaxx said- plenty of places to sit and going at your own pace is perfectly fine, just be careful on the stairs, as people following the cast members tend to fly down the steps with little regard for those also on the stairs.
As for the witches- the first time I went, the bald witch was a man, while the second night I went it was a woman, so even the gender of the three witches can change depending on the cast that night.
I would like to sell two tickets to Sleep No More Tickets for Thursday 5/19 at 7pm. $90 each ticket or best offer. Please email at joyce_s_k@yahoo.com. Thank you!
OK I saw it last night. The bad-back and knee issues were almost non-existent.....it was weird, I normally cannot stand or walk for really long periods, or climb stairs very easily, but somehow all of that felt so much better at this show...it was like it had some curative powers LOL. The 3 hours FLEW BY! I think it was the adrenaline. I did sit down sometimes, but kept wanting to pop back up and keep moving. It was not overly fun following a mob up or down the stairs, but I think there was a particularly good and well-behaved crowd that night. My only quibble is that it got REALLY HOT, and so I twice ducked into the restrooms to suck water out of the sink and wipe off my face! Oh and a couple of audience members were making out the large chair on the little balcony that overlooks the ballroom. Tacky!!!
**POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW** I was prepared to get separated from my partner, but we were let off the elevator together, then after about 20 minutes went our own way, then found each other and stuck together from then on....not necessarily on purpose, but I think we hit a lot of the more empty areas so it was easy, and it was good to end up together for the finale. I sort of wish we had separated a little more, but it was sorta cool to discuss what we saw together, afterwards. And I do agree that I wanted a TAD more context...even after studying Macbeth and viewing "Rebecca" I was confused as to who was who.
For the record, I told my partner a little about it going in (just the essentials), and he LOVED it. Yay! The scenes we saw were I think some of the smaller ones...people typing, sewing, dealing cards...we did catch Lady M.'s blood-washing, the discovery of the body (Duncan's?)and of course some of the large ballroom numbers. I'm glad we stayed for the finale...intense!
I never did see any witches! WTF! We seemed to run in to the nurse a LOT (is there a nurse in Macbeth??). There was an odd scene with her in the woods/maze, then the hospital, which was cool because there was almost no audience there other than us. And she always seemed to be near me on the stairs or in the ballroom LOL.I didn't even see anyone get pulled in for 1-on-1's.
So anyway, we had a great time. We lingered in the bar a long time afterwards, and got to chat with some of the cast, which was way cool .
Yay! We're celebrating the chance to fly back to NY for the weekend of the Tony's and FINALLY make it back on Monday the 13th for a repeat tour of SNM. Like a lot of you on this thread, I've been plagued for weeks with the need to solve the mystery of the layout of rooms-- roughed in my own groundplans of how I thought the rooms fit together to compare to my husband's recollections. Many of your posts on this thread have helped clear things up in my somewhat addled mind. Thanks for that!
Now we're bringing a friend with us (virgin to the show), pus a few resolutions: 1. We will DEFINITELY each head off on our own soon as we're off the elevator. (Stayed side by side last time and felt we missed 3/4 of the scenes.) 2. We'll spend LOTS more time on the 3rd and 4th floors (Macbeths' Bedroom & Macduff suite, and the alley of shops). First time in we were obsessed with the 5th floor's rooms to the exclusion of most of the scenes going on below us. 3. We will allow ourselves to be seduced by whichever character crosses our path. Follow whoever intrigues us, or hopefully create that spark in them that inspires one of the much-vaunted 1-on-1's you guys on this thread have been raving about for the last 2 months. 4. However the 3 hours go for us this time, we'll be thankful for the opportunity to revisit that crazy dreamworld for a second time, but this time with our eyes really WIDE awake.
Those of you who have not had a chance to see this incredible show( or want to see it again and again!) now have an extended opportunity! SleepNoMore extends!
FINALLY we got back to NY this weekend to revisit this damn insidious show Monday night. In fact two guys ahead of us in line were there for their TENTH visit. This show got it's claws into us back on our first visit in mid-April, has haunted our dreams ever since, and it's taken the last 2 months just to work out the groundplans for the various floors, to try to map out exactly how all the spaces fit together. Figuring out how the dance-scenes fit together was even harder, given that the first time out we managed to miss every single exchange that involved nudity (and believe me, that excludes a LOT of moments from the first go-round).
So how was the visit for round two? Well, let me tell you what a pleasure it is to wander around the spaces finally knowing where most hallways lead, and what you'll find in most rooms. What you lose in mystery and disorientation, you gain in being able to navigate fearlessly from one floor to the next. You know how to get from the Rave to the Bathtub to the Banquet Hall nearly as efficiently as the actors do.
Scenes we finally saw this time: (SPOILERS) Yes, we actually managed to locate the Rave and take it in at close hand (actually twice), so close in fact that I've now got a huge dry-cleaning bill to try to get the spatterings of stage-blood out of my white shirt, dammit. Caught Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's pas-de-deux from the tub to the bed, and around their bedroom cushions. Took in Lady Macbeth's out-out-damn-spot sequence within the mirrorbox of her vanity. Loved the acrobatics of the boy-witch and Macbeth( I think?) as they changed out of their blood-soaked shirts in the storage room with the suitcases chained to the racks. Swell scene in the speakeasy where Hecate exchanges a playing card with the boy locked in the cabinet. Caught Macbeth's athletic solo atop some of the brick foundation walls in that cellar space outside their bedroom. Finally saw Hecate unlock her serving dish and cutlery to munch on the steak. Loved the homo-pas-de-deux with the boy-witch and older bald-guy (Duncan maybe?) around the lobby telephone booths. And yes, I even stumbled on the"Narnia" wardrobe when it was unlocked: not a lot of payoff here, as you simply move through a couple of closet-y spaces full of clothes till you pop out 2 rooms over from where you began. And no, it's NOT in the suite of MacDuff's rooms as I had thought earlier...
So the game of navigating around got much easier, but the down side was it also allowed me to really appraise the rooms that had so dazzled me the first time inside. And on closer scrutiny the dazzle is gone and the rooms seem much more amateurish and impoverished than I had first thought. Still a boatload of brilliant concepts here, but a lot less polish once your eyes fully adjust to the light.
What was true for the Set Design also proved true for the performances. Once I had tracked down most all of the scenes, I was surprised by how repetitive many of the danced sequences became. The performers seemed to spend an ENORMOUS amount of time just trying to confound the spectators as to their next move. Constantly feinting left, going right, to slip past the masked mobs that followed in pursuit. This bunch of spectators was VASTLY more aware of the game being played out here too. They knew which characters they wanted to stalk and when a scene was about to break up, already timing their exit to match the hot girl or guy that was their prey for the night. And no, for all our attempts at meaningful eye-contact with the key players, all 1-on-1's eluded us once again.
So what did it all add up to? Well, back in April we wished we could have spent an extra hour or two in that maze of rooms. This time? About 2 hours in we were ready for a couple of drinks at the Manderley Bar, and by the time the last banquet finally wrapped up with its great coup-de-theater, we were well and truly done with the place. And I suspect my dreams will now finally be purged of this haunted crew once and for all. If you've never been, a single visit to the McKittrick is absolutely required, but like Sondheim once wrote, "Once, yes, once for a lark. Twice, though, loses the spark..."
VERY well put charlesjguiteau. Thank you! I agree with you so much. I was absolutely blown away the first time. I too 'had' to return to figure out more. The second time I knew my way from room to room and was even in tune with sounds and music to know: 'oh, the rave is starting because I just heard Hecate scream' and I was in the taxidermy shop! I have some minor wishes for things I haven't totally figured out but their do not out weigh the cost time & money to attend and invest another night inside. Never fully figured out: * what happened in the children bedrooms, * didn't see the entire MacBeth in the graveyard scene, * didn't see much happening on the hospital floor - does anything happen up there beside the 1 on 1 (which I experienced in the hut with the nurse), * would have liked to follow Lady MacBeth more and the MacDuffs, etc
Brian, as far as I know, the hospital floor (5th floor) has virtually no staged scenes except with the nurse, who spends time inside that woodshed in the corner of the woods, and later scrawls chalk markings on the post outside the shed. On our first visit, we spent so much time up there we missed lots of the good stuff down below. This time I breezed through that floor just once to concentrate on the performers on 3 and 4. (I think one of the posters on this thread mentioned seeing a guy dancer showering blood off in the shower room-- but can't corroborate).
Fun fact: In Boston the bathtub room was kept darker, and besides Lady MacBeth trying to wash the blood off herself on occasion, there was also a live eel in one of the tubs.
As a fan of Sleep No More, I remember stumbling on this thread in search of SNM music, as someone asked about a soundtrack. Well, after digging through the interweb upon endless hours, I've recently found a blog entry that has one, and it sounds pretty much the same and was wondering if it was legit!!! There are some tracks that I remember hearing and have been listening to this download for a few days non stop.. The opening track, followed by the songs from Lull, Black Swan and The Caretaker sound exact to those I've heard in the play. I know the music is scored by someone on the staff (isn't it the graphic designer from Punchdrunk that makes the original music?) If these songs aren't the ones played throughout the show, I could bet money that either A- these artists have been to SNM and had been influenced or B- These artists are the same of the composer under different aliases! Especially Black Swan.. It brings me right back to the hotel!! What do you guys think??
FELIX BARRETT: I was always excited by the supernatural aspects of Macbeth. For Sleep No More, we removed all Shakespearean text and found a dance language to convey the story. We decided to use Hitchcock’s thrillers as the setting. Aesthetically, his films are beautiful, the wonder of film noir. We also needed a strong music presence, so sonically, we are using a lot of Bernard Herrmann sound tracks.
Listen, I don't take my clothes off for anyone, even if it is "artistic". - JANICE
