Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Immersive alternatives for nightlife merriment: HYPNOTIQUE at The McKittrick Hotel and LIGHTHOUSE at SoHo Playhouse

• By drediman
• September 18, 2023
• No Comments

If you’re looking for alternative entertainment experiences, I’ve got a pair of suggestions for you, both of which blur the lines between nightlife merriment and immersive theatrical presentation. Here are my thoughts on them.

HYPNOTIQUE: A LATE NIGHT SULTRY SPECTACLE
The Club Car at The McKittrick Hotel
Booking through October 14

First up at The McKittrick Hotel (the home of the long-running hit Sleep No More) is Hypnotique: A Late Night Sultry Spectacle (RECOMMENDED), a brand new experience at the enterprising Chelsea venue’s flexible Club Car space. Playing late nights on Fridays and Saturdays, the plotless show heavily draws from the underground burlesque and ballroom traditions, presenting its seductive acts within the context of a thickly atmospheric dreamscape that surrounds the audience. Thanks to some surreal noir lighting and fashion forward costume design (by David Quinn), the result is a somewhat slight endeavor that’s as entertaining as it is stylish — an unabashed and empowering celebration of feminine sensuality. Additionally, director/choreographer Whitney Sprayberry does a wonderful job of keeping the promenade production democratic and sprightly mobile. Over the course of the 70-minute show, the gorgeous cast of dancers, singers, and acrobats envelop the audience, giving spectators equal opportunities to partake – at times intimately – in the sustained immersive dream that is Hypnotique.

LIGHTHOUSE: AN IMMERSIVE DRINKING MUSICAL
SoHo Playhouse
Through September 30

A hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Irish American musical Lighthouse (SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED) — which is being billed as an “immersive drinking musical” — is currently enjoying an extended Off-Broadway run at SoHo Playhouse. Written and composed by Emmy-winner Jacki Thrapp (with additional material by Billy Recce), the new musical pays homage to the resilient institutions that kept their doors open during the pandemic, particularly those scrappy watering holes that became life lines for many of us. Immersively set (the show fits cozily into SoHo Playhouse’s cramped basement bar space and comes complete with multiple rounds of whiskey shots) in one of these bars — the titular and aptly names Lighthouse — the show asks audiences to once again conjure those dark days and the community and spirit (pun intended!) that kept us afloat. Intimately directed by Georgia Warner, the production features unvarnished performances by a young, game cast, who only superficially mine this recent history, only occasionally excavating it for what it’s worth.