Anyone put off by the theme-parkification of theater – spectacle! Gimmickry! Intellectual property! – would probably do well to just ignore Masquerade, a new immersive-experience off-Broadway version of The Phantom of the Opera. It has an unavoidable resemblance to next-gen ride experiences like Disney’s Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance or Universal’s Monsters Unchained (the latter of which even features a cameo from the Phantom himself, albeit in a different incarnation) that make patrons feel as if they’re being ushered through a famous fictional world. But a lot of skill goes into high-end theme park attractions, and like those, Masquerade is a lot of fun if you’re in the right mood.
While the gold standard for popular immersive theater is the Macbeth adaptation Sleep No More, which ended its 14-year run earlier this year, Masquerade is a more straightforward treatment of rather less venerated source material. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, which set a Broadway record with its 36-year run, is itself a kitschy adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s 1910 gothic-horror novel about a disfigured man who lives beneath the Palais Garnier in Paris, studying the arts and meddling in the theater’s productions. (Basically, it’s the story of a particularly bossy critic.) The musical softens some of the more horrific elements, and is known for an insidiously catchy Webber score. Based on the middling reception of the 2004 movie adaptation, it may also be something of a you-have-to-be-there work, a show that depends on live pageantry and, yes, spectacle to fully put across its melodrama.
In other words, its shortcomings are ideally suited for an experiential reworking that places the audience in the middle of the action. Creator-director Diane Paulus and producer Randy Weiner have truncated the story and some songs to fit a two-hours-and-change runtime, which also must accommodate a lot of travel time, as the audience shuffles from room to room and floor to floor. (You may not have to stand through the entire thing, but most likely you’ll be on your feet more often than sitting.) As before, chorus girl Christine gets a chance to sing in place of the Paris Opera’s prima donna, after years of coaching from an unseen tutor – the so-called opera ghost who lurks below and around the theater. He reveals himself to Christine, and also threatens the company with violence unless they produce his opera with the object of his obsession in the lead. A love triangle of sorts also forms as Christine reunites with her childhood friend, Raoul.
You may have noticed the lack of credited actors; that’s because the nature of Masquerade involves multiple casts cycling through the show for the multiple groups that walk through the building in staggered time slots. There are six Phantoms and six Christines; my preview performance had Jeff Kready and Anna Zavelson in those two roles, respectively, both good in the midst of potential logistical chaos. Any theater nerds overfamiliar with Phantom of the Opera (or just not that engaged with it) might still be occupied by attempting to clock the mind-boggling dexterity this production requires of its actors and technical crew. One particular marvel is a series of scenes set in a relatively small dressing room, to a crowd of around two dozen people, with the actors sometimes inches away from the audience (depending on your particular vantage). The small of these scenes requires them to be performed multiple times in quick succession, in differing order to juggle the cast.
It’s not all technical wizardry, either. The immersiveness lends some moments that might otherwise seem cheesy a striking intimacy, and also lets the performers go smaller in between the more bombastic belt-outs. Zavelson shows particularly impressive range between the Broadway-style emoting and the small-group intimacy, at one point hitting the final word of a famous Webber tune with a tremulous whisper. The lightly interactive walk-through element also recalls a big-budget haunted house, which nudges Masquerade back toward Phantom’s horror roots, particularly for a backstory sequence (not included in the original musical) set at a carnival show – which here includes some Coney Island-style stunt work from a fire-eater and a human blockhead.
These changes are admittedly more superficially pleasing than thematically resonant, and the show does involve an awful lot of ushering and re-arranging as the audience moves from a genuine basement to a New York City rooftop. (As my viewing companion noted: Finally, a chance to see the Phantom of the Opera ride an escalator!) But it seems weirdly likely to unite Phantom superfans, who will glory at a new production they can actually live inside for a few hours, and those indifferent to the Webber show, who can enjoy the carnival-like showmanship without needing to buy into the show’s thinner characters. This reconfigured Phantom may be closer to a ride than high art, but it sure gives you a closeup look at a lot of terrific craft.
