“Hecate had just sat down and was about to start her meal when I broke through the crowd of guests, panting, and opened the letter to her. Her eyes lit up once again, and made me her guest at her meal. She pet my hand, poured me a shot, and continued to eat her bloody meat. After singing “Is That All There Is?” she grabbed me back into her lair, took my mask off, and said quite bluntly, “I never thought you would get this far.” She sat me down, poured tea and gave it to me, and began to tell me the story of “James” and how his boat sunk during a storm. At this point I am on the verge of tears (my actual name is James), and as she stirs a small white sailboat into the tea cup, it turns to blood and spills all over me. Thunder claps, the lights go out, and Hecate begins to cackle. Loudly. She lifts me up in the dark and sends me to another room, where it begins to rain. She puts on my mask (in pitch black) gives me a bear hug, and throws me out into another room. I had passed Hecate’s test.
The Anthropology of Human Behavior: Passing Hecate’s Test (via Kathryn Yu)
As I mentioned on Twitter, this weekend I experienced “Sleep No More,” a sprawling interactive theatrical production (of sorts) in a renovated former warehouse on Manhattan’s West Side. While I didn’t experience anything quite as dramatic as the story above, I can confidently say it was one of the most amazing “designed” experiences I’ve ever had. The entire place is essentially a giant interactive set featuring a cabaret, hotel lobby, a graveyard, a mental hospital, a hedge maze, a detective agency, and numerous other locations you’re allowed to move around freely—following the action (which is loosely based on “Macbeth”) if you like, or simply exploring. There are secret passages, doors that are locked and unlocked throughout the performance, and dark areas that take a fair amount of courage to explore at first. I found I was exercising parts of my brain I hadn’t used since building a mental map of “Legend of Zelda” dungeons. As the story illustrates, there’s always a possibility you, as an observer, will be pulled into the play’s action, which keeps you constantly a bit on edge. It’s very hard not to get swept up by it all, and the immersion is near total (I wandered around for over two hours without realizing what time it was, and only the growing crowds of audience members toward the end of the night came close to breaking the spell). If you’re going to be in New York City anytime soon, don’t miss it!
