What I liked
see review
What I didn't like
see review
My overall impression
A couple hours before my scheduled one-on-one performance for Annie Lesser’s A(partment 8) I was emailed a waiver. Having spent the evening chatting with friends I didn’t see the email until I was walking over to the check in point, so I signed the waiver without reading it. And I’m glad I didn’t read it (although I don’t condone signing documents without reading them) because it made everything that happened a complete surprise — which is the best way to experience immersive theatre. Not wanting to give away the surprise to those who haven’t experienced it yet, I’m going to be vague.
Performer Keight Leighn is intense, captivating, and haunting in this brief 10-minute experience. The writing is poetic and evocative, and although there are opportunities to verbally respond, I was in such a state of wonderment that I could barely muster gestures and whispers to her questions. This is in part due to the precision of the setup of how they have you “enter” someone else’s flesh. It reminds me of video games where it starts off with your character waking up somewhere and not knowing how they got there or what’s happened prior. The same happens here – I “woke up” wondering how I got there and what led to this point. Perhaps that’s why I was speechless, disoriented.
If you are comfortable with dark subjects, intense one-on-one performances, being touched, and getting dirty, then you must be on the lookout for another remounting of A(partment 8) (as it’s sold out for the Fringe), which is part of Lesser’s ABC Project.
