**½ / ***** (two and a half stars out of five)
Lennox Mutual—a new experimental and immersive theater piece from “alternate reality theater” company Candle House Collective—invites its audience to inhabit its singular world, one member at a time. Experienced entirely via the medium of one-on-one customer service telephone calls, complete with convincingly corporate phone menu options, Lennox Mutual aims to build ties between client and representative, while providing glimpses of a darker world beneath. Please hold for a full review . . .
ONE. “Hello?” you say, and hear the click of a call center connection whirring into life. The Lennox Mutual representative comes on the line and presents you with the menu options, which seem suspiciously similar to the menu options you’ve heard on any of the hundreds of phone calls you’ve had to make to clear up an issue with medical billing, change your cable plan, or set up a payment plan with the IRS. You’ve heard that this is a brand-new form of immersive, interactive theater, and you do indeed feel immersed–the voice you’re hearing is so pleasant that it feels like she is mocking the very idea of pleasantness, like she is smiling specifically so that her smile can be heard over the phone. If you pick a menu option, go to paragraph two. If you ask to speak with a representative, go to paragraph three.
TWO. Each option you pick leads to a total non sequitur. You are reminded of the time you went to see–or rather, experience–Sleep No More, and found yourself holed up in a parlor with furniture you could snoop through. There were objects in drawers, obviously carefully selected, but to what end? You never quite trusted anyone who raved about the show after that. You end up revealing personal information to the representative in an attempt to access a restricted menu option (note to self: don’t ever use your first grade teacher’s name as a security question again), but you can’t shake the sense that you haven’t figured out how to interact with Lennox Mutual in the way it was designed to operate. If you pick a new menu option, go to paragraph 4. If you rage-quit, go to paragraph ten.
THREE. You are speaking with a representative; all of Lennox Mutual’s interlocutors are human beings. There are no shortcuts; go back to paragraph two.
FOUR. Finally, you feel like you’re getting somewhere. Surely, this is how it’s meant to proceed! The representative talks you through what sounds like the setup to an off-kilter fairy tale, the hypnotic lilt of her welcome-to-Moviephone-sounding voice having an actual physical effect on you. To continue on this adventure, go to paragraph five.
FIVE. Gotcha! You are presented with the same menu of options. To reflect on the similarity between this and an escape room, go to paragraph six.
SIX. It’s ironic, because you love escape rooms. The puzzles on this call are so reminiscent of the phone mazes you had to navigate when your mortgage servicer didn’t pay your property taxes that you become very conscious of your breathing. You always try to be extra polite to call center representatives, and you are unsure of how to proceed on this call. Do they want you to be affable? Confrontational? Investigative? Is it healthy to care this much about what strangers think of you? She just made you sing, that’s got to be an aggressive action. For a reflection on horror movies, go to paragraph seven. To continue to the second call, go to paragraph eight.
SEVEN. Here’s the thing about the first act of horror movies: they already don’t seem fun. Staying in an empty hotel with Jack Nicholson white-knuckling his alcohol use disorder all winter is already a setup you’re going to want to avoid, and these options all seem like a prelude to something mega-creepy that is, hopefully, miles beyond these mundane horrors. You are learning things about yourself, and one of them is how much you find an actual disturbing situation preferable to navigating a corporate phone menu. To accept the second call, go to paragraph eight.
EIGHT. The second call delivers more of the dark fairy tale, briefly raising your hopes before returning you to that infernal menu. Is this what Hell is like? You jump at the chance to solve puzzles (see paragraph six, re: escape rooms), but again, you are frustrated. You ask yourself, how exactly is this a piece of theater? It feels like conceptual art, which you suppose is a kind of theater, but isn’t theater communal by definition? Go to paragraph nine.
NINE. The third and final phone call with a Lennox Mutual representative is more philosophical in nature, and you find yourself answering her questions without second-guessing yourself (too much). Are you finally getting the hang of this? Another dark vignette, another blend of fantasy archetypes and bland corporate packaging, and you are just starting to relax and share more about yourself when a bell rings. Go to paragraph ten.
TEN. And here we are at paragraph ten: Goodbye!
Lennox Mutual—An immersive telephonic experience produced by Candle House Collective and created by Evan Neiden, Olivia Behr, and Joel Meyers and directed by Jacob Leaf and Evan Neiden. Booking arranged here. Performances run through May 13.
