Sunday, September 7, 2025 at 7:45 PM Sep 7, 2025, 7:45 PM
A linear promenade rather than a “Sleep No More”-style exploratory affair. They’re doing some very impressive things here and I was definitely wowed at points and it’s clear that a lot of time and money and impressive creative effort has gone into making this the best version of the thing it can be. Ushers move you around with an efficiency that shows that the creative team has thought really hard about how these spaces are going to function. Surely this will run past November, right?
The “opera house” layout is not as coherent as maybe I (unrealistically) hoped—probably better to think of it as “abridged, rearranged ‘Phantom’” in a series of scene-specific intimate stages, which are generally well done. Highlights for me were the masquerade ball and the gravesite sequence. They also add some worldbuilding with respect to the Phantom’s origin and emotional arc that I thought was very nice.
In some cases, especially for things that would be difficult to stage in the format (e.g. most but not all of the opera-within-a-musical) they do an alternative scene that conveys the same story beats, typically with a “behind the scenes” angle (i.e. you are up in the rafters with the Phantom in one case). Some major set pieces are compromised. This feels like they’re bumping into the inherent limitations of the concept, and it’s probably “Masquerade” at its weakest—subtractive rather than additive. It would be fascinating to see a big budget musical that was specifically written for a space like this, but goooood luckkkk getting investors on board with that one.
I don’t want to yuck anybody’s yum, and I think a lot of people will be really happy with it—but I might just be more of a sit down and watch kind of person. They call this kind of thing “immersive theater” but I just don’t know if I feel immersed for seeing myself in mirrors and navigating spaces full of other theatergoers and riding up and down escalators in between major scenes and having to interact & perform dance moves and worrying about my outfit and my hair. I kind of wanted to be home in bed the whole time and I think it’s a me problem rather than a them problem. Maybe I’m just old. The neighborhood must get really tired of hearing the rooftop songs every 15 minutes 😝