Vegas’ 'Oddyssey Manor' Comes Close To Getting The Recipe Right (The NoPro Review)

Oddyssey Manor is fascinating, albeit probably not entirely as its creators intended. 

Take the physical and experiential structure of the defunct Lost Spirits Distillery at the far southern edge of AREA15 in Las Vegas, put in a few dashes of the memory of Sleep No More, stir enough to lightly mix and garnish with some Greek myth and you have Oddyssey Manor: more than an intimate vaudeville show, not quite a full fledged piece of immersive theatre.

Before we dig in and talk about what does and doesn’t work, let me give you the lay of the land.

THE PREMISE

Tonight you’re invited to a party: Felix’s birthday party, to be exact. His wife Penelope has invited all his friends — that includes you — to celebrate the big day. What’s this? You forgot your present? That’s okay. What do you get for the man that has everything, after all? 

Indeed the presents are more for you, in the form of five sample cocktails that can be found at little single drink bars around the space. Riffs on margaritas, manhattans, and even espresso martinis. All served up as little 1oz offerings. Yes, there are mocktail options. Yes, everyone gets to try all five. If this sounds a little familiar it’s because a similar set-up was part of Lost Spirits. Back when the space was a distillery run by mad scientists all the drinks were samples of the various bottles — rum heavy — that the company produced. The booze was the literal star of the show then.

In those days the entertainment was a side show — quite literally — as various incredibly talented acts from Vegas’ vaudeville scene did close up performances of their acrobatic and contortion feats. That tradition continues here, as a cycle of performances alternates between a small elevated “Garden Stage” just off the “main street” near the entrance to the space and the slightly further back Elephant space — labeled on the little map the show gives you at the start as the "Center Stage" but so called because of the mural of a circus elephant that’s back that way and which accommodates both aerialist action and multi-person dance numbers.

Both of these elements having ties to the Lost Spirits days, the new element are the lead characters — Felix & Penelope, his best friend Henry, manor resident Athena, and her girlfriend Cici who runs the local butcher shop. The various performers are collectively referred to as The Serenas, and the folks who dispense with the cocktail samples have personas that are lightly tied into the loose Odyssey-derived narrative. 

As it goes: Cici isn’t particularly happy with Felix and has decided to kill him, which she does through poisonous/sorcerous means. Athena, for whom Felix is a favorite, is upset by her partner’s decision and undoes her work which puts the characters into a loop where Cici’s vengeance and Athena’s mercy play out over and over again with the doomed Felix being none the wiser after his resurrection/reset.

HOW IT PLAYS

All this might just be going over the heads of most of the audience, who for their part seemed to be more concerned with dutifully following The Serenas from vaudeville act to vaudeville act or collecting on their two full sized cocktail tickets if they sprung the extra $30 for the VIP track that came with those. 

Not that the whole of the audience was disengaged, at one point a friendly stranger approached and started breaking down the character relationships to me in my ear unbidden. I had spotted her earlier when I was following Felix to confront Cici about a pig nose she had sent him and we had found three guests — the friendly stranger included — all wearing similar noises and “oinking” at the mention of Felix’s name.

This kind of thing hints at there being a lot going on under the surface, and when approached by the stranger we decided to team up and see what we could find out. This led to us getting a paper rose folding lesson, her getting a tarot reading by a guest artist on site, and both of us concluding that there wasn’t much under the surface of the story.

What’s so fascinating about OM is that while slipping around the eight or so reworked parts of the Lost Spirits set and chatting with the actors its clear the ingredients are at hand: the staging of the set pieces has those New York immersive theatre notes that scratch the immersive heyday itch, and there’s a will amongst the cast to deliver something truly memorable, but on a story level they aren’t being given much to work with.

This is less a case of oversight and more a case of the core question that haunts every piece of commercial immersive theatre: who is this actually for?

To get into that, we need to peel back the curtain a bit and talk about a framework for audience dynamics.

A QUICK LESSON: WADERS, SWIMMERS, DIVERS

The term “Waders, Swimmers, and Divers” (alternately rendered as “Skimmers, Dippers, Divers” by Steve Coulson and the team at Campfire) is used by folks in the themed entertainment industry to talk about the three basic types of audiences that attraction designers make work for.

Waders are there to get their feet wet, soak up the vibes, and fairly passively take in the entertainment. They are in theory the largest segment of the audience if only by dint of how much meaningful agency can be shared with large groups of people at any given time.

Swimmers buy into the terms of the experience, willing to follow the trials that designers leave and play along with the interaction points set up for all. In gaming terms they’re “critical path” players who are there to get the core experience, as intended and generally won’t be satisfied with anything less.

Divers are out for secrets. They track down possible clues and look to wring meaning from what seems to be present. They’re also the ones most likely to accidentally go backstage — no, really accidentally — or “break” the “game” by asking a question that no one really knows the answer to. When a piece has enough for them to work with, this type has the most fun of anyone.

(There is a fourth type talked about — Mermaids — whose whole deal is active co-creation, but let’s save that for another day.)

The issue with Oddyssey Manor is that it advertises itself as for swimmers, hints at some options for divers, but in its heart of heart is for waders.

After all — most Las Vegas punters buying even an $80 ticket are going to be content with two full sized cocktails, a bunch of samples, and burlesque performances that devolve into a pillow fight. (Which struck me as risky the first time it happened, and an hour later when I was a full drink and a half in seemed more harmless thanks to how well the cast modeled light taps with the pillows. Still: give the audience enough rope…)

By building on the bones of Lost Spirits, Oddyssey Manor is squarely setting out to be for those who are curious about the whole immersive theatre thing but haven’t ever been. That was the case for my friendly stranger, who confessed to me that she was somewhat disappointed by there not being that much to the story once she — a natural diver by temperament and profession — started really engaging with the cast.

AN UNFINISHED TALE?

The thing is it’s pretty clear that the cast could handle more. A prescription for a bit of a writing clinic that added some depth, tightened up the soap opera dynamics of the signature characters, and gave them some objectives that could only be realized through the medium of the audience could add a satisfying layer to the work. That would not only turn it into a must see for the enthusiast crowd but could go a long way to turning the waders into divers and thus into repeat customers.

I write this with the hope that the Oddyssey Manor team puts some work in on a 2.0 version and unleashes their cast, because we could really use a long-running, easily accessible, for adults, immersive theatre piece for first-timers at Las Vegas’ immersive entertainment nucleus. 

As it stands they’re more than halfway there, and just need to keep going until they get the story across the finish line.

Oddyssey Manor runs Fridays through Sundays in the Oddyssey District of AREA15 in Las Vegas. Tickets are $49.99-$79.99. Guests must be 21+.