I’ve long wanted to travel to New York, and I’ve long had detailed visions about what it would be like. As I sit here at my computer back in Minneapolis reminiscing about my vacation to a city that is always awake, recalling the apartment where we stayed–a six story walk up on the fifth floor, sirens persistently audible through open windows with no screens, bathtub in the kitchen–it’s remarkable how much of what I know about New York through film, television, theatre, music, and literature was very clearly reflected in what I saw. I had this vision that New York would be very different from what I saw in all those Woody Allen films or episodes of Louis CK’s Louis, but in reality, those examples seem to reflect the real character of New York quite accurately.
Something that had surprised me, however, was how friendly people there seemed. People actually said, “Excuse me,” and, “Sorry.” When Amy and I went to the famous Katz’s Deli to enjoy a pastrami on rye with a Katz’s ale (which was absolutely delectable… you must get both), the person making our sandwich actually asked us how we were doing. I had this conception in my head that New Yorkers didn’t have time for that sort of nicety, and I was surprised that we actually had time to respond with, “We’re good, thanks,” before ordering. Also, an old woman who sat close to us while we were deciding what to do next kindly told us that we can bring uneaten food to the counter to have it wrapped up in wax paper. I was just rather surprised that people weren’t keeping to themselves as much as I thought they would. I’m not complaining, of course, just pleasantly surprised.
After Katz’s we did some snooping around the East Village, stopping at Obscura (very disappointing… it’s a shop featured on a show call Oddities and it sells semi-bizarre items like shrunken heads and taxidermies of conjoined animals), Tompkins Square Park (a nice little stroll where you can discover that people really do play chess in the park just like in the movies), a relaxing community garden called La plaza cultural (more on that in a later post when we visit the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space on our last day), and then finally a little cocktail at Vbar St. Marks’s on the corner of 1st Ave and St. Mark’s.
Following this we made our way via the L Train to Brooklyn to attend our first night of theatre, but not before stopping at Sweet Science and Featherweight for cocktails and then some Mexican food at a place that was so disappointing I’m not going to even bother trying to discover its name in the old Google. Featherweight, however, was a delightful discovery. It’s an old boxing house (as in, for people who box to hit people, not for people who box to ship things somewhere), and its exposed brick walls, elaborate, rusted ceiling patterns, and old world green-painted walls and wooden support beams made everything feel like we were transported to a 1920s speakeasy. My only complaint is that the illusion was slightly ruined by how the barkeeps were dressed in hipster jeans, patterned button-up shirts, and thick-rimmed glasses. It might be neat if they dressed up a bit with black slacks, white button-up shirts with bow ties and with sleeves elegantly rolled up to the elbow, just to continue the aesthetic through and through.
But enough complaining, as it’s off to the theatre. Our first night brought us to Then She Fell, an immersive theatre experience by Third Rail Projects and performed in the Kingsland Ward at St. John’s in Brooklyn and featuring writings by Lewis Carroll, as 2015 marks 150 years of Alice in Wonderland. With only 15 guests per show, theatre goers are treated to an experience where they move from room to room, interacting with props, responding to questions from actors, and wandering about and sitting down or standing up in each room as the action takes place.
This show was more dance with some dialogue sprinkled in and featured some forgettable music by Sean Hagerty (that awful, repetitious, post-minimalist ostinato crap that has been popular for several decades now and that was more distracting than enhancing to the proceedings). It began with a short monologue from a man playing a doctor, informing us of how this hospital worked (don’t speak unless spoken to and return items you found back to their original place) as nurses dressed in dresses and aprons and caps of blue and white quietly waited in the corners. As the doctor continued his monologue, the nurses escorted us, one-by-one, to different rooms in the ward, the doctor’s monologue still audible through speakers. The whole evening was very carefully planned so that we all got to take part in every single scene of the play, moving to every single room, sometimes alone, sometimes with others.
Each room was very carefully decorated in styles from the 1930s and 1940s and from Victoriana, with detailed props of handwritten notes in locked chests that we could unlock with keys we received before the opening monologue, hutches with glass trinkets, wooden desks with art deco lamps, lockers and chests of drawers with linens and clothes, all perfectly placed about in dimly lit rooms that still allowed us to see the details without having to squint.
My first room brought me to a kind of dressing room with clothes tucked away in lockers and chests with countless hats hung up on the walls. I was able to unlock one of the chests just as a Mad Hatter character escorted another one of the audience into the room, and then she directed us to sit down. I was asked to select a hat to wear (I opted for a three cornered hat, but she forced a black brimmed hat for me instead), and then asked the other audience member to dictate a letter. The Mad Hatter spoke at a frantic pace while I held back laughter as I watched my fellow theatre goer try to write down every single word. There was so much to write that by the end of it all, she ended up with words scribbled in margins and in spirals on a piece of paper much too small, to which the Mad Hatter commented admirably on the form the letter eventually took.
Following this, I was led into the next room where an elaborate frame resting in between two desks doubled as a mirror, as two Alice characters sat down opposite each other, looked at each other, and copied the other’s movements that involved soft, delicate hand gestures to more energetic twists and turns, their whole bodies on top of the desk. It was slightly uncomfortable, as some of the movements and some of the facial expressions were vaguely sexualized, as befits Lewis Carroll’s obsession with real-life Alice Liddell. (Ben Brantley of the New York Times points this out in his review of the show.) Soon, one of the Alice characters leaves, and I’m invited to copy the remaining Alice character’s movements, which involves pealing and partially eating a small tangerine. I was unaware of Lewis Carroll’s unhealthy obsession with a young girl when I saw the show, but now in retrospect, it feels as if in that moment I became Lewis Carroll who was so in love with a young girl too many years his junior. An uncomfortable thought indeed, and all the more uncomfortable if for the fact that we were in a kind of mental institution that’s treating people for various ailments, unhealthy sexualized fantasies of children included.
But enough recounting of events for now, as I don’t want to spoil too much of what you might experience if you go yourself. When my friend Amy and I left the show for the evening, we actually felt a little bit disappointed. We were slightly annoyed that the evening involved more dance than dialogue, that the music was overly repetitious and distracting, and that our responses to questions and our discoveries of items in drawers had no effect on the direction of the plot.
In retrospect, however, and after attending Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More on our last night in town (another immersive theatre experience and a lamentably horrible show that I will delight in lambasting when I write my post for Day 6), Then She Fell was an incredibly enjoyable experience. And the more I think about the evening, the more I’ve come to really quite love the whole program. Third Rail Projects took what works about what Punchdrunk did for Sleep No More, but provided much-needed control and direction to the whole proceedings so that Then She Fell became a much more successful production over Sleep No More.
If you do attend Then She Fell (and I highly encourage that you do), and if you know the same amount about Lewis Carroll as I do, you might do well by reading up a bit on the man himself (the Wikipedia page will suffice), just so that you are more familiar with the images and characters that you will see in the hospital. Or don’t read up, and you’ll still experience an evening to remember. As the title of the piece suggests, you will fall into a world where you will feel uneasy, perplexed, enchanted, and mesmerized, guided from room-to-room, exploring locked chests, dusty books, and shelves of photographs and letters, staring directly into actors’ eyes mere inches from your face, drinking tea and other alcoholic concoctions, all wrapped up into a pleasantly and thoroughly enjoyable evening. Just as we fell into a gloriously fantastic city called New York, so too did we fall into an enigmatically beautiful world of Lewis Carroll. A fine way to start our holidays for sure!
Stray observations (a la AVClub):
1. Don’t bother with trying to get around by taxi or car, as even at 2:00pm on a Wednesday afternoon, you might find yourself gridlocked on city streets. So, for only $31, you can have unlimited rides for 7 days on the subway and bus system, and it’s frequently if not always faster than trying to get around by car.
2. That said, the subway system in New York isn’t as slick and clean and as easy to use as, say, the London Underground. Expect occasional delays (our very first ride on our very first day required switching trains because one ahead of us stalled), confusing announcements via signs and garbled voice messages on speakers about re-routings, large rats on the tracks below, and the frequent smells of piss and garbage.
3. That said about that, take the subway and busses regardless, as you’ll have a much more colorful and memorable experience while you’re here.