Sweet Dreams: The Prologue is the fourth immersive production from Shine On Collective, headed up by director Marlee Delia and writer Anna Mavromati, who made their debut at the 2016 Hollywood Fringe Festival with the piece The Truth. In the Fall of last year they made mark with Devoted — a three part tale that danced with the dark side of immersive and culminated in an intimate, disturbing portrait of a young woman whose traumas had pushed her towards self destruction.

For their latest, which aims to be the set-up for their longer-form piece in the Fall, the company returns to the them of troubled young women: this time in possible supernatural peril. But where Devoted was born of Hitchcockian horror instincts, Sweet Dreams is drawing from the fertile ground of fairy tales and fables.

The piece begins in the front cab of a U-Haul truck, where Philip (Alexander Echols) awaits. He’s convinced I’m there to help — with what it’s not clear at first, but the map of the United States that’s filled with pins and scraps of notes surely has something to do with it.

Philip is looking for his lost love — Rose — and while he’s not willing to come on out and say it: he seems to know more about what’s going on than he’s letting on.

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This first half of Sweet Dreams: The Prologue plays looser than I might like: and is punctuated by sounds from the other side of the truck where something major seems to be going on.

Thankfully this is not a multi-track piece, and before too long Philip leaves, then comes back to escort us to the back of the truck where a bedroll is waiting for me.

With a splash of the rolling door closing I’m shut in with whatever lies in wait.

It’s here that Sweet Dreams: The Prologue begins to really take off, as it’s Rose (Hannah Faust) that is waiting back there… only back there isn’t really back there. Instead we’re in Dreamtime, where the shape of what’s really (irreally?) going on begins to become clear. As with Devoted the melding of storytelling tropes and the physiological underpinnings of a singular character are deftly woven together: hinting at just how much skill this troupe has for physicalizing the interior of a character’s mind.

I’m betting on the full piece that Shine On is working towards will be another sleeper Halloween hit. This prologue marks a great way to get exposed to what the company is capable of, but it’s not flawless.

Echols is a game actor — his turn in Devoted was a surprise highlight — but his part here feels underwritten and a bit ungrounded. He’s got the thankless task of initiating the audience into the world of the story without having the fantastical elements that Rose gets to play with. It’s a role stuck in the transom between our world and the next, and as such the sequence could use some more TLC. Especially with the acoustics of the truck promising something stranger than an awkward conversation just minutes away.

That said: don’t let the Prologue in the title keep you away from diving in to the dream. This is a highlight of this year’s Fringe, and unlike some of the others, there’s a few spots left towards the end of the run.

Sweet Dreams: The Prologue is part of the 2017 Hollywood Fringe Festival. It plays through Saturday June 24th, and tickets are $15. It will also be a part of the San Diego Fringe. The culminating show is scheduled for October and November of this year.

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