The Veep: Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Veep returns this Sunday(4/12), but today I attended a pre-screening of my favorite current show with a talk afterwards with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. All I'm going to say about the show is that it really keeps up its high intensity and quick wit. If you haven't seen this hilarious and intelligent show, please watch it as soon as possible.

Veep Season 4 pre-screening

The first episode of season 4 was spectacular, but I was even more content that I got to hear a conversation between Julia Louis-Dreyfus and the moderator, Frank Rich. Julia laughed about how the two of them were talking in such a formal sense even though they were close friends (Rich being a producer on Veep).

The whole talk was very genuine and friendly. Julia talked about her past experience at 92Y as a 3 year old, running and jumping in dance classes. She talked about lessons from Seinfeld, how great the cast of Veep is, and about growing up in DC where she bought shoes from Rich's father and created an acting troupe with her neighbors that was sometimes called Julia and the Umbrellas. 

Towards the end of the talk Julia answered audience questions written on notecards and happened to answer mine: "The facial expressions in Veep are almost as funny as the lines, how much of that is improvised?" She and Rich talked about how when you really get a sense of what the character is doing in a scene, then you can start to let those expressions show through. Then Rich went on to discuss Tony Hale's (Gary) expressions, who's expressions I had in mind when I wrote the question.

Frank Rich asked Julia Louis-Dreyfus another audience question:

Rich: "What would Selina be if she wasn't a politician?"

Louis-Dreyfus: "In jail."

Rich: "And what would you be if you weren't an actor?"

Louis-Dreyfus: "Unemployed."

At the beginning of this post I said Veep was my favorite current show, and Seinfeld is my favorite all-time show. I guess you could say I am a fan of Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She is a comic legend.

Sleep No More

Sleep No More was an experience that started out slow, and for a large part of it I thought I wasn't much of a fan, but by the end I was completely engaged and after leaving I can't stop thinking about it.

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." - The opening line of Rebecca, but also the truth. Last night I dreamt about my experience at Sleep No More, an interactive fusion of Macbeth and Rebecca that takes place in a beautifully furnished five story hotel in New York City. This blog post serves as my way to remember my night, but if you're planning on seeing Sleep No More...beware of spoilers.

Sleep No More mask

*SPOILERS*

We put our masks on in a cramped room and a lady ushered twenty of us into an elevator and barked at us that there was to be no talking in the hotel and that we must keep our masks on at all times. The elevator started and a grumpy man began ushering people out of the elevator in groups, until only a few of us were left.

He pushed us out onto a floor with various rooms, all decorated with a vigorous eye for detail. I opened drawers and inspected their contents. But for a long time I couldn't find any characters. Throughout the experience there are actors portraying the story of Macbeth, but I was only finding other spectators just as clueless as me.

Eventually I found a lady in a red dress, glaring into a crowd of spectators and dramatically eating what looked a lot like watermelon with raisins on top of it (apparently raw meat). For the next few hours, I kept catching glimpses of great scenes (Macbeth killing the king, a weird witch rave orgy, an elegant dance in the ballroom), but I wasn't able to completely follow the story.

Then in the last third of the experience I really got the interactive experience that people talk about when they describe Sleep No More. It got great. One of the witches was arguing with the lady in the red dress and then she fell at my feet. She jumped up, grabbed my shoulders and whispered in my ear, "Help!" before the lady in the red dress grabbed her again and threw her to the ground.

That scene ended and I ventured up some flights of stairs and began watching a character carrying a suitcase. She entered a room with books and then stared around at the five or six spectators. Then she reached out her hand to me and pulled me into a locked room. She pulled me to the corner and pulled off my mask, smiled, and then began quoting the opening monologue of Rebecca: "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Then she opened a drawer and pulled out a locket, put it around my neck, and then pushed me into a closet. She stepped in and closed the door behind her; it was pitch black. "We can never go back to Manderley again," she whispered. Then she pressed the locket into my hand, told me it would keep me safe, and pushed me back into the world of Sleep No More.

I just stood there for awhile, those few minutes had been more amazing than the past two hours in the hotel, and I was just shocked. But then I kept going, witnessed a fight and someone getting killed. And then a random character (I thought maybe Macduff) just grabbed my hand and led me down many flights of stairs and right to the front and middle of a banquet scene. I could tell this was the finale. Macbeth was sentenced to hang, and Macduff grabbed me by the shoulders and tightened his grip as the music crescendoed and a rope was placed around Macbeth's neck. Then Macbeth hung, the lights switched off, and Macduff released my shoulders. I was so close to the swinging Macbeth that I was a little worried his swinging feet would hit me.

But then my Sleep No More experience was over. Macduff led me up the stairs back to the bar and handed me my mask.  What had started as simply exploring my surroundings had turned into a truly interactive experience.

All the set exploration at the beginning was worth it. I really got a sense of where I was and it all felt so much more real. The scenes I saw made more sense because I knew where they were happening. I knew more of the story.