www.buzzfeed.com: Audience members wander through dozens of elaborately decorated rooms as dancers perform a blood-and-sex filled adaptation of Macbeth at the immersive theater production Sleep No More. The lighting ranges from dim to very dark; guests are intentionally separated from the people they arrived with. Before the performance, an actor usually declares that “fortune favors the bold,” and the 400 or so audience members are instructed to wear — and not remove — ghoulish white masks, fueling a sense of anonymity amid the production’s fantasy setting. And sometimes, former staffers said, audience members just reached out and groped them.
2 comments:
This article covers a wide range of different instances when an actor in “Sleep No More” is sexually assaulted by an audience member. I think it is important for the article to stress the circumstances of the show since it is not like a typical portrayal of Macbeth with the actors on the stage and the audience members in the house. This show pulls the audience into a “mystery world” with the anonymity of masks and the raw material of half naked actors really investing in what they are saying. Something about having your identity protected by a mask or anonymous account gives people a feeling of power, they can do anything so what’s to stop them from groping these performers. Frankly I think that it’s completely inappropriate and naive for an audience member to think they can get away with actions like that much less that it’s okay! These actors are putting themselves out there artistically and shouldn’t have to worry about being taken advantage of.
It makes me sad, but again unsurprised that there have been instances of sexual misconduct in Sleep No More. One of the things that bother me most about this article is the grey area between Emersive setting out extremely clear rules, but not acknowledging that an incident has taken place unless a formal complaint was made. Possibly it’s a legal thing, but it is also a part of rape culture because it implies that you don’t believe the victim. Within the organization there seems to be a gap between the rules and the execution of those policies, such as encouraging performers to report sexual misconduct. But I appreciate that the stagemangers are pushing to ban certain individuals before they actually cause a problem. I like the fact that they have added a line at the beginning about not touching the performers. Ultimately, the organization has all of the policies in place it’s just a matter of zeroing in on the gaps.
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