Visually, Sleep No More is a collage of various, seemingly disconnected imagery that can at times feel almost overwhelming. The immersive theater experience is based off Shakespeare’s Macbeth but is enriched with numerous cultural and historical references. As an audience member, you are constantly questioning the importance or relevance of the things you see in each room. This experience leads us (the audience) to find our own connections between the classic story of Macbeth and the imagery around us. By doing so, Sleep No More physically brings to life the story of Macbeth and creates a personal learning experience for each individual audience member. These connections can be important to the entire plot or just enhance the moods and emotions and reflect them in the surroundings.

The general ambience of the Hotel McKittrick does not resemble the world we would associate with Macbeth the text. Instead, it is decorated to be set in the late 1930’s, most likely in America or Europe. This transports the experience to a time of uncertainty and insecurity in American history, similar to the political instability of Scotland in Macbeth. Still recovering from the Great Depression and on the verge of World War II, people in the 1930’s were fearful and distrustful. The set design, music, and costumes contextualize the story in a time in history, and thus reflects the feelings associated with that time. This also makes the experience much more believable for a modern audience, who might feel less relation to eleventh century Scotland.

I first noticed Sleep No More’s reference to the horror film genre when I recognized the soundtrack from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho playing through one floor. Just hearing the music made what I was experiencing feel scarier because of my associations with it. Alfred Hitchcock is known for the suspenseful uneasiness of his films and this is brought to Sleep No More by any audience member familiar with his movies, through just a song. One room in the hotel was filled with taxidermy birds, an obvious reference to Hitchcock’s Birds and horror character’s fascination with bringing life back from the dead, like Victor in Frankenstein or Norman Bates in Psycho. The experience of walking through the Hotel McKittrick reminded me of the role that the hotel as a setting plays in the film The Shining. You have full access to the hotel the same way the characters in The Shining do. Like in the film, the hotel is a character that has multiple stories of its own and each room is like a vignette. These references in Sleep No More inspire the same kinds of feelings in the audience that a haunted house does, where one travels with a constant fear of what they might see or encounter. The horror movie genre displays many similarities to the ‘genre’ of underworld journeys that we’ve been studying and Macbeth. Most importantly, horror movies explore the same relationships between good and evil within the realms of life and death.

On each floor of the hotel, there were various kinds of religious iconography that decorated the rooms. These images were incorporated into the spaces where the characters resided, showing their influence on the lives and actions of each characters. In almost every room, some form of religious cross could be found, sometimes hanging on the walls and shelves, or even in the form of two sticks stuck into a pile of salt. In some rooms I found bibles left open on the desks, and paintings depicting biblical scenes. The hellish quality of the space is enhanced by these representations of the goodness of God and heaven. In one way this religious imagery serves as a visual reminder of a set of moral laws meant to govern human life that are then contrasted against the ‘immoral’ actions of the characters within the space. Like in King Duncan’s quarters, there is a small room with only a statue of Jesus on the cross and benches in front of it right next to the bed where he is murdered by Macbeth. The darkness of the space is contrasted by the religious imagery, which is usually illuminated by candles or colored light. This could be compared to Macbeth’s, “black and deep desires” which are threatened by the light that would expose them. In another way, the visuality of religion is meant to highlight the characters of the play in relation to biblical figures, like the Virgin Mary and Lady Macduff. One of the biggest, yet less obviously religious, examples of this was the choreography and stage direction of the banquet scene, which referenced Da Vinci’s image of The Last Supper. In the banquet scene, King Duncan is seated in the center of the table with the other characters on either side of him, like Jesus and his disciples. During the scene, Duncan slowly stands and assumes the same position as Jesus in the painted depiction of The Last Supper. This comparison shows Duncan’s shortlived power and also predicts his death. The dynamic highlights the other characters’ betrayal of Duncan like the disciples in the story of The Last Supper. The lack of dialogue in Sleep No More makes this kind of reference important for the viewer to better understand the characters and their relationship to each other. The necessity shown for religious imagery in each room establishes Sleep No More as an underworld journey in the way that it requires faith. As a production, it requires the faith of the audience in order for them to suspend their disbelief and immerse themselves into the ‘second world’ of the hotel. But Sleep No More also uses the religious imagery to signify the madness and consequences of faith in Macbeth’s story. It is Macbeth’s blind faith in the witches’ prophecy that rationalizes the murders he commits.