Two days later and my feet, which have just stopped aching from lengthy pilgrimage in the process of viewing Wicked Lit. and I get unexpectedly and very happily invited to Jon Braver’s Haunted play series Delusion. This year’s delusion has the subtitle of “Masque Of Immortality.”
This year the totally immersive and interactive headfirst plunge into the land of phantasms and deviance has a new home in a Korean Church (Which may now be defunct) right in the heart of Silverlake on Lucille and Griffith Park blvd just a bloody stone’s throw from the grossly green Polka Dot Plaza on Sunset Blvd.
If you’ve ever played the Silent Hill video RPG games, especially the first three, expect that kind of vibe minus the thick fog. In an undisclosed time period that may be any time between the late 20’s to the early fifties in rural America, a great plague is festering and decimating the land and its people — and not just their fragile bodies, but their emotions and psyches as well. The only ones who seem to thrive and hold command through out this contagion are the Plague Doctors. Unlike their namesakes of the middle ages, The Plague Doctors also possess psychic powers and use people for various purposes that become known to us only as the play progresses.
Fortunately, not every panicked soul has succumbed to the Dr.s who look a lot like they stepped out of the Mad magazine cartoon Spy Vs.Spy. Led by a small faction of the resistance we are asked to help solve puzzles, face really creepy people possesed by the plague, find secret passages, run up and down stairs and hide in confined spaces. The story is a little loose and the end is perplexing but the set dressing and the acting is tops in a really well thought out script that is part Lovecraft and part Clive Barker. The stunt work is very good but there is as much of it this year due to the many small rooms in the church, but the chapel has some surprises, so keep your eyes peeled. The Haunted Play also introduced me to something I hope revisit and that’s Basil Lime-ade. Man,that stuff is devilish!
