When we look back on this era I suspect that The Recurring Dream will be to crafting immersive what Memory was to late 20th century playwriting.
As “memory” is a seemingly natural structure for a play — with dramatic action given form around not-quite-omniscient monologues — recurring dreams give the looping framework oft found in immersive work an organic feel.
Dr. Hallard’s Dream Study #114 starts with the concept of a recurring dream and makes it the whole of the piece. The titular Dr. Hallard (Dasha Kittredge) has become trapped in one of her own dreams as part of a study that seeks to unlock the dream frequency and open up the shores of the collective unconscious to exploration. Or exploitation. One so often following the other.
The dream in question takes place on the mid-1980s — a time when dream studies with unfortunate consequences were very hot in pop culture — at ETA Bar in the Highland Park neighborhood of LA.
After a short on boarding process that takes place on the sidewalk (which is effective even if the street itself works against the vibe, really) participants are set out on one of two quests. Either they’re here to free Dr. Hallard from the endless dream or damn her to eternal slumber. Which path you’re set out depends on your reaction to a simple question that gives no real hint to its consequences. (Although it is also so simple as to not prevent a re-tracking on a return trip.)
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What follows is a series of short puzzles, actor encounters, and — for lack of a better term — cut-scenes which detail the backstory.
The puzzles aren’t terribly difficult once you get into the groove, and they’re not meant to be. This is a project seemingly aimed at folks who are looking to have a good time at a bar on a slow night, and the production team has done a damn fine job of giving the whole thing a very cool, mid-80s-by-way-of-David Lynch vibe. Out of place visual elements offer key clues, television screens loop directions via closed captioning. Things that have no business being at a bar sit in corners, waiting to be unlocked.
The cast, anchored by Kittredge’s Dr. Hallard and Mikie Beatty’s Neil is as solid as you will find in an immersive piece in LA, even if the structure puts more emphasis on the cut-scene aspects of their performances than the interactions with patrons.
If there’s a major note to give, it’s with the structure of the prize: a drink ticket, ostensibly included in the $30 ticket price. Yet once you’ve completed your mission, even through the bar is quite comfortable as a bar, the still playing out dream (which by the nature of the story, can’t end) sort of puts a dampener on any sense of closure that a “victory drink” might have. One wonders if it would make more sense to give the drink ticket out at the start or just require a bar minimum as part of the package. (For the record: if you’re into Penicillin — the drink, not the antibiotic — they make a very good one.)
Dr. Hallard’s Dream Study #114 is likely a live fire test of something bigger from the team and not just as standalone project. It definitely makes a solid part of a night out, if not quite a full evening in and of itself. Like the escape games that it borrows elements from, a piece on this scale is better suited to being the conversation piece for an evening with friends or the anchor for a date night.
Frankly, we could use more of those.
Dr. Hallard’s Dream Study #114 runs Sundays through December 9th at the ETA Bar 5630 N Figueroa St, Los Angeles. Tickets are $30 with entries starting at 7pm. Patrons are welcome to stay as long as they’d like.
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