Living for ‘Dead’

| 13 Aug 2014 | 08:00

    On our way to [Play Dead,] a new “Midnight Spook Show” written by Teller (of Penn & Teller) and Todd Robbins, I told my companion, “Look. We will not scream out loud.”

    “I can’t not scream, Mark,” she said.

    “Fine. We can scream. But we can’t giggle after we scream. If we’re going to scream, we have to own it and keep screaming until someone slaps us across the face.”

    Well, we didn’t scream and we didn’t giggle, but we did have to go into hardcore tactical maneuvers out of sheer self-preservation during the 80-minute magic-cum-freakout show. Yes, there is audience participation throughout (and don’t think that sitting against the wall will protect you). Yes, unseen hands may touch you. And yes, you may end up terrifying yourself more through the power of suggestion than anything on stage could.

    At least, that’s what was happening all around me as Robbins walked the audience through a dizzying assortment of legerdemain and a brief history of real-life monsters, including Brooklyn child killer Albert Fish (who cannibalized his victims) and ersatz psychic Eusapia Palladino. His air of insufferable smugness is both occasionally annoying and fully deserved; he holds all the cards, and we’re just his trapped guinea pigs. Why shouldn’t he be smug, when his tricks are so elaborate and perfectly performed that my companion and I spent the subway ride home wondering how the hell he did it?

    I have some theories, but I’m keeping them to myself. Besides, I’m not qualified to expound on how Robbins managed to conjure up the deceased relatives of people sitting in the audience. I am qualified to say that of all the shows involving audience interaction, Play Dead is possibly the only one that I have actually enjoyed. Once the show was underway, I even relaxed into the idea of being called onto stage—which is possibly the highest praise I could give.

    I will add one caveat—in the final, terrifying moments of the show, which Robbins and Teller (who directed with a decidedly sinister hand) have turned into a free-for-all of fear, you may be lightly splashed with water. Since I was wearing glasses, I found myself too annoyed to remain in dread. Then again, that might have been a blessing. Judging from the sounds all around me, I may have dodged a bullet.

    [Play Dead]

    Open run, The Players Theatre, 115 MacDougal St. (at Minetta Lane), 800-745-3000; $39.50–$59.50.