SLEEP NO MORE at the McKittrick Hotel

(Seen 5/18/11)

Environmental installations are hardly new to the New York theatre scene, but this venture's scope and seeming vastness adds new dimensions. And therefore, for those of us familiar with this type of theatre event, the disappointment is greater when it fails to live up to expectations.

The PUNCHDRUNK Theatre Company has transformed three adjoining warehouses in Chelsea into the "McKittrick Hotel", a ramshackle conversion into seemingly dozens of rooms and endless hallways and stairs. Each room has been variously decorated with antiques and detritus from bygone eras, which along with many large open spaces, serves as the background for PUNCHDRUNK's unrecognizable version of MACBETH.

This is more an art installation than a theatre event, so the play is not the thing -- it's merely a sham for a lot of shameless performance 'artists' acting silly and seemingly unrepressed, although it is a choreographed work, not an impromptu one.

Beholders -- or ticket holders, the audience members -- are shuffled from space to space and room to room to follow the lack of action. Or you can choose to ramble along at your own pace and paths. We are made to wear white plastic Venetian face masks, which seeks to make us into androgynous players in this communal enterprise -- but also makes it difficult to breathe in the mostly airless spaces.

Many of the rooms are interesting, if tacky, and some quiet downtime is available there -- and you can momentarily remove your mask if no monitors are around to prod you into wearing it.

For newcomers to this media, there can be some discoveries made -- and my companion enjoyed some of it as art installations. But for old theatre veterans like myself, it made me yearn for TAMARA, ensconced in an East side armory years ago, which had a story line you could follow if you chose, and included a champagne banquet for all guests.