This promotion of spectatorial choice has drawn critiques from scholars such as Adam Alston, Jen Harvie and Keren Zaiontz for its enthusiastic complicity in neoliberal modes of consumption and labor. Sleep No More’s immersive adaptation of Macbeth has attracted scholarly attention for its insight into spectatorial desires for mobility and interaction. As such, an interactive performance like SLEEP NO MORE points to the need for us to reconsider the boundaries between “game playing” and “play going” in the digital age. SLEEP NO MORE finds its success with audiences searching for new and innovative ways to engage with Shakespeare, live performance, and one another. The commercial and critical success of Punchdrunk’s Macbeth adaptation tells us contemporary audiences, steeped in digital technology, desire a participatory play-going experience as well. In so doing, the audience becomes invested in the game/play by physically participating in the act of storytelling and meaning making. Only through experiencing and interacting with the “in-game” environment does the audience come to create meaning and construct the play (or game’s) narrative. Like e a video game, the success of SLEEP NO MORE is contingent upon the interaction between the playgoer and the multi-layered playing space.
Punchdrunk's work appeals to a generation of audiences raised on interactive, immersive, story-based video games in which the choices one makes affect the attributes of one’s character and the outcome of the story itself. In this chapter, I argue the popularity of Punchdrunk's SLEEP NO MORE stems from the success of a similar phenomenon: dynamic story-based video games.
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