But she’s one of the few characters that really stands out. This is what I did as much as I could with Velma (the powerful Megan Wicks), a strong and tragic - of course - lead singer and performer in the cabaret, popping pills and dealing with her controlling asshole husband - of course. If a character disappeared somewhere, she might be in a room marked private and you’d just hope you’d run into her later on. Trying to get involved or stay with a character proved difficult sometimes. The audience remained passive, beautiful, set dressing. So while this was site-specific theatre, it didn’t come across as very immersive or interactive. You could sit in the bar or the cabaret or play poker in the casino… but you couldn’t really interact with characters unless you were the girl chosen silently by one of the sullen vets for five minutes (usually, this type of thing involved having paid more for a premium ticket).
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It was no Drunk Shakespeare, where you sit in a bar and interact with the characters but witness the full performance loop. This was no Sleep No More (a dance-based five-floor performance loosely based on Macbeth) where you can follow a character the entire show, or catch a decent amount of story due to three one-hour-loops of narrative. We kept an eye out for them often over the next 3.5 hours, but only once, at the end, did one of them make a small reappearance in a group scene. Their storyline seemed interesting, but after that scene, they disappeared. It wasn’t so much discreet as it was a line at a theater box office, but the character was plenty eager and sent us on our way to the Speakeasy with plenty of instructions: “pin this rose on your top” - “turn off your phone” - “these are your casino chips but the house always wins” - and, of course, “speak easy.” We entered the bar late, in the middle of a conversation between two young WWI vets reuniting. My friend and I began our experience in the street, waiting in a long line of people to get our information from the Man in an Orange Hat, fighting over who would actually have to ask the aforementioned question.
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However, with its many storylines and lack of clear instructions on how to navigate the space and characters, story and plot fall to the wayside in lieu of spectacle.īoxcar Theatre’s production creates an authentic atmosphere of an illicit bar in the 1920s. The attention to detail is astounding when it comes to production design, with its period-perfect sets, costumes, sound, and makeup. This is purposeful Boxcar Theatre’s production does everything it can to create an authentic atmosphere of an illicit bar in the 1920s. San Francisco’s popular site-specific theatre experience, a Prohibition-era speakeasy set in a “secret” location in North San Francisco, is full of instructions.
When you see the Man in an Orange Hat, wait until he’s free, and then ask him: “Do you know where to get a good slice of pie?”
Jessica Waldman and Rick Roiting as the bartender in The Speakeasy. Photo by Peter Liu. San Francisco’s site-specific The Speakeasy from Boxcar Theatre invites you into a Prohibition-era haunt with amazing period costumes and design but fall shorts on story.
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