New Terrain in Interaction Design - Computers as Theatre - page 208

Sleep No More
The play Sleep No More is a theatrical example of what we've called “blossoming
geometries of plot,” but with different methods than those used by the Renaissance
Faire. Punchdrunk Players staged the production in three abandoned warehouses
in Manhattan. The production is wordless—performed through dance, gesture, and
décor—and distributed through several fl oors and rooms of what is tricked out to
be a 1930s hotel. Loosely based on the Scottish play, the action unfolds simultane-
ously in several spaces, and it is up to the audience member where to go and what
to watch. A New York friend of Nazarian's from Frog Design calculates that there are
at least 14 hours of experience-able content, but the audience's stay is limited to two
and a half.
Like earlier site-based theatrical productions (e.g., Tony and Tina's Wedding ), au-
dience members follow characters through locations rather than being led by tem-
poral sequence. But audience members for Sleep No More must wear white masks
(reminiscent of neutral Venetian carnival masks), and they are warned not to say a
word or touch a performer; they may, however touch set pieces, open drawers, etc.
Says co-director and choreographer Maxine Doyle (Barrett and Doyle 2013), “The
spaces are as autonomous and complex as the characters themselves, and each one
operates as a distinct chapter in the overall work.”
Doyle explains that the minor characters are fully developed so that we might
“imagine the action that might have been happening off the page, what I call the
unseen text.” Each character has “a distinct arc, with a beginning, a middle and an
end. Should an audience member wish to reconstruct the story afterwards, this will
let them do that.”
The performers act and dance out the themes and central actions of the original
play as well as a great deal of “unseen text” in elaborately designed spaces. The New
Yorker review (Als 2011) states that the music induces “a kind of emotional vertigo.”
At the end of their time in the production, audience members end up in the
cabaret-like lounge in which they began. When friends begin to discuss what they
have just experienced, they are likely to express confusion and emotional fatigue.
But here's the cool thing; they have all had what they would call a dramatic experi-
ence with a more-or-less dramatic shape. This is the secret sauce of Punchdrunk's
genius. Interaction designers can learn from the authors' use of character arcs, the
content matrix, and the autonomous use of spaces.