Dramatis Personae:
Kevin Gossett — NoPro LA Reviews Editor
Noah Nelson — Publisher
Note: Spoilers abound.
Other note: Not so much that we give away anything major.
Kevin: Noah and I both went through One Exit, ended up on separate tracks, with mostly different experiences, so we decided to try something different with the review here. One Exit is loosely riffing on both Sartre’s No Exit and Dante’s Inferno, but it’s maybe got more of the “seven deadly sins” thing going on than a “nine circles of Hell” thing. Which is to say, you’ve died and you’ll be spending some time in Hell with some sinners and their sins.
It kicks off with the Valet, who’s a Virgil/Charon mashup leading you into, well, Hell. The Halogen Company has secured a pretty cool venue; it’s a church, but it’s a smaller one than you normally see in immersive theatre, which makes the opening pretty intimate, and it’s got a very ornate thing going on at the front that works very well with the vibe they cultivate throughout the whole show.
Noah: Okay, we’re multi-track here, so to some degree we’re gonna recap chronological from the split.
After Xander (Zander? In any case, played by Aaron Lyons) took us into the back we got blindfolded up and handcuffed to another patron. I got lucky: it was a friend.
A quick aside on the cuffs: I messaged you, Kevin, when we got the one for this. It mentioned “handcuffs” and with all the earthquakes we’ve been having of late, I’ve got a bit of hypervigilance going on. I really didn’t want to have to write up a note about safety in this review because the production used a cuff in a way that could have been a disaster in, well, a disaster.
The good news is they got the exact cuff recommended by Room Escape Artist in their post about restraints. Which made me glad that we weren’t going to have to be pulling immersive heads out of church rubble. Well. Handcuffed ones, at least.
So we’re shackled and we’re on our merry way, being led around in circles with him chatting at us, laying down some aspects of his story — in this case that he had a beer on him when he died and wish that it had come along like Alice’s book had.
That was actually a nice piece of storycrafting: a detail that seemed inconsequential but was brought back into play at the right time. While I’ve got some issues with the amount of telling versus showing in the piece overall, the bones of the telling are good. The writing’s got chops.
Kevin: My track kicked off with Eliza (Chynna Skye) explaining her story, and while I do think there’s an over reliance on telling-not-showing at times, that’s not a problem here. Eliza lays out how she died and what she was doing in her life until that point that will eventually tie back into the sins you encounter with her. Because I didn’t quite know what form the show was going to take at that point, it didn’t tip me off to what was coming next. It was a nice bit of organic storytelling that relied on solid character work to set up the rest of the piece. From there, we were blindfolded and lead to meet with our first sin.
Noah: Over on our track, we came to a space carved out of the in-between filled with some of the devil’s favorite idle time wasters: puzzles and games. Accompanying them was the incomparable Keight Leighn, whose abilities as an immersive actress are… well, they’re not actually put to much use here. This bit felt more monologue-y but came together within the moments when she played off Aaron Lyon’s Xander. Maybe. It had something to do with the staging: Keight was backlit, which pretty much took her eyes out of the equation. It was a cool stage picture for starters, but then didn’t really go anywhere.
The thematic interchange was about negligence, and it was this section that, for me, had the most “tell, not show” in the whole of the piece. Which, honestly, is a shame, as getting a chance to play WITH Keight Leighn — or Aaron Lyons for that matter — is always a great treat.
And there’s a lot of acting talent in this show.
The scene capped off with us being implored to scribble down a regret in a journal.
Kevin: I’ll get to my first scene in a second, but you’re not kidding. This cast is a murderer’s row of immersive talent. I think no matter which track you end up on, you end up with, like, two to five fun actors you’re likely to have seen in multiple immersive shows. And this is kind of emblematic of some of the problems the show has as a whole. It’s ambitious, loaded with a huge cast of great actors, there are multiple tracks going on that don’t repeat across participants except for the person you’re already paired with, and it’s got a high repeat factor. When I write it all out like that, it’s weird to call it a problem! But! It just feels like there’s SO MUCH going on with everything. Which I guess means this isn’t really a big problem, but it does make the show feel a little loose and a little messy at times.
Anyways, my first scene had a kind of similar thing going on. The design elements elevate it: I’m a sucker for an eye patch and a light that someone moves around to interrogate people with, and this sequence had both. I was actually unfamiliar with the actress in this scene, but she digs into the part going both big and small when it was called for (the “small” works, but runs into some heavy sound bleed issues with everything else going on, which kiiiiind of works with the setting, but also doesn’t). There’s a little twist to the sin, the script walks you in one direction, before revealing where you were actually headed. It does go heavy with the monologue though, and again, it’s some good writing, but the scene is at its strongest when Skye and the other actress are sniping at each other.
My first scene closed with everyone writing something down in a journal too. HMMMMMM.
Noah: For our second scene, we were brought back around with blindfolds into a dining area with actor James Cowan at the head of the table. Another veteran performer — Halogen really did get a murderer’s row for this — the scene brought two groups together for a feast. A feast that turned into a game of riddles.
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I have a love/hate relationship with riddles. I love, love, love solving them as few things make me feel more clever. And I extra hate getting them wrong. In general they stress me out, but this ended up being my favorite bit of the show if for no other reason than Cowan and Lyons (still with us) were having a grand old time playing with us.
Sure, there were still performative aspects, especially in terms of tone, but the exchanges around the table put us on even footing. There was some more confessional chatter around the table, but even though this was a major theme for the show it felt more incidental than anything.
Asking for revelations is, on the one hand, an invitation to play… but on the other it can often lead to bland dead ends. It’s a rare piece that deploys the tactic well, and rarer still that elevates it into something sublime.
Kevin: There’s a definite trend going on here. My second scene kicked things up while also getting into a solid show-don’t-tell groove. Eliza took us to a new sin, this time personified by Noelle Urbano and Sophie Cooper. (There’s a meta element here for people who have seen The Willows a few times that eventually becomes a killer meta joke in One Exit that lands a punchline before your time with Urbano and Cooper is up.) To set this sequence up, you’re seated back-to-back with the audience member you’re attached to and Urbano and Noelle are also tied together while Skye sits close by.
It’s a simple premise, but man, is it effective as the pair circle around your chairs, pulling each other in different directions, taking time with each person separately. Their sin was more obvious than the first ones I ran into, but there’s a wrinkle here that you don’t see that often. It does let you know that the writers have thought this through and it gives Urbano and Cooper the chance to play two different sides of the same coin. They kill it and keep the scene at just the right amount of uncomfortable and off-kilter. Then we were taken into the tail end of your dinner scene, Noah, to gear up for the ending.
Noah: When your squad showed up I got excited. We were through the riddle game. But I thought you might have a chance to play along in that scene, it seemed like a natural fit. But that wasn’t what the production had in store.
Kevin: Walking into that dinner scene, I got excited, too. It seemed like it was set up for a big group interaction, but then it went in another direction. Again, I feel funny calling some of these things problems, but, like I said before, there’s just so much going on and the show just moves at this breakneck pace. Sometimes that type of thing is exhilarating. And it works at points here, but having time to breathe would have let the otherwise strong material open up a little bit. The “sins” scenes run a good while, but once you’re out of them it’s GO GO GO.
Noah: Yeah, I keep feeling that this is a solid test for something… more. And the pacing of the “sins” scenes might be a solid place for development.
Thankfully the next scene did pull us all together, so the rhythm logic is working here.
Kevin: I just want to interject for a second and say that of all the things this show throws at you, there’s one that tickled me to no end. There’s something that always shows up in waivers and never actually happens… but it happens in this show! It’s as much a function of actually doing the thing as it is a clever way of moving the audience around an obstacle in the space. That doesn’t mean it isn’t fun, though!
Noah: The finale put us into a light escape game scenario, which worked after the riddle game for me, but I wonder if it was a big tonal shift for you.
Kevin: I feel like a broken record here, but there’s almost no time to recognize the tonal shift because the show just wants to keep moving and trying new things. So all of a sudden you’re in a mini escape room now and you’ve got to get out! The script never lets up, which should give you some whiplash as you rush into something new, but it’s also something new and fun to play with. And this was a fun little twist on an escape room. It made sure to use the participants and it made sure to use those common immersive questions you get quizzed on for a pretty cool effect. I appreciated that it was actually incorporated into the story in an organic way, not just to make you uncomfortable. Which again, strong writing and great ideas, but almost no time to process them all.
Noah: Yeah, I don’t think we’re overselling the pace, at least on the back half. The whole thing is only about 45 minutes but it’s fairly dense, so much so that it feels like it’s longer. I mean: you get to make the show you get to make, but there’s a lot working here that could bump up to something next level with room to breathe.
Kevin: Given the background of the creators and actors, it feels like a mini Creep show.
Noah: Oh, good point.
Kevin: If they had the space and budget of Awake, One Exit would be something even cooler. I could see it playing out in that warehouse and running a little bit longer, giving them more time to let the thematics sink in.
Noah: Which is a good time to remember that this is Halogen’s, like, second show, period, and their first which we’d call immersive. Which makes for the strongest debut we’ve seen in a minute, and while there’s definitely work to be done on One Exit as the company steps right into the “one to watch” category with this one.
Kevin: Yeah, I’m curious to see what they do next, even if it’s just a more polished version of this show. Because I liked what I saw last night (and honestly, if it were running longer, I probably would have gone back to see another track or two), but as we’ve been chatting about it, I think I’ve talked myself into liking One Exit more. Stepping back from the show and actually looking at the structure of the writing, there’s a lot of clever, smart choices they make that tie into character and theme. It’s just hard to see some of them while it’s happening or even in the immediate aftermath.
To recap: One Exit is a strong immersive debut from Halogen, if one that feels a little messy and a little rushed. It’s a clever little riff on both No Exit and Inferno that manages to do some cool, interesting things, even if they’re sometimes overshadowed by the pace of what’s happening. But man, when it’s firing on all cylinders, it is fun, especially with the cast they’ve got assembled. And I’ll always take a show that’s ambitious and swinging for the fences over one that’s playing it safe. Plus the fact that there’s a good amount of thematic stuff to chew on after the show? Icing on the cake.
One Exit runs through July 14th in the SilverLake neighborhood of LA. Tickets are $35.
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