12 guests, 12 rooms filled with meaning, 24 actors. 3 acts of “a theatrical journey at the junction of music, promenade theater and audio performance”. Here’s everything my colleagues and I knew about the world’s first immersive theater-restaurant, The Mirror of Carlos Santos, before heading there. As the creators promised, we got a new experience of interacting with ourselves. But it is not clear how to talk about it.
The organizers urge you to avoid spoilers, and this complicates the task. Technically, the “Mirror of Carlos Santos” is a point in the center of Moscow, from which space begins to “unfold” step by step, layer by layer, turn by turn. Clearly theatrical and ultra-futuristic, home and office, this 1000 sq. m twists in a spiral and branches the paths of the labyrinth. Guests dressed in masks and cloaks with hoods are assisted by 24 actors to navigate through them.
In a sense, this is similar to a quest, an escape room, “leaving the room”. Participants are looking for a key, but not one that will open the way out, but one that will help open the door inside themselves. They are looking figuratively: they think about the answers to the questions asked by the voice in the speakers and headphones and the psychologist.
Who you are? What do you do? Is this what you wanted a long time ago, as a child? When was the last time you dreamed? What childhood dreams came true?
Room with subdued light. 12 people who do not know each other, do not know what to expect from the evening and themselves. The psychologist asks questions and invites everyone to be alone with their thoughts and a piece of paper. Think about the main thing – about dreams. Sketch a draft, in the evening there will still be an opportunity to correct it, but later.
“Mirror” generally resembles a session of psychotherapy. Questions about who we are, what we want, what our purpose is, whether we are satisfied with life. The answers to them are found not only in our present, but also in the past, early childhood, and in the future: after the final act of our personal play.
What would you do if you were not limited by the framework in love, sex, relationships? What is it like for you to be in the office aquarium, why do you allow yourself to be treated like that?
An hour and a half of searching for answers to difficult, uncomfortable important questions. Observations of strangers – but strangers? – family scandals and office races, desires and fears. Journeys through different stages of life, marked with a few strokes: a bunk kindergarten bed, a school desk that has become cramped, a faceless office open-space, a shower cabin. And something that cannot be denied.
Probably, this is not quite what you expect from an entertaining event with a dinner in the final, hence the resistance of some participants, the more valuable the answers found.
Of course, this is a theater, but 12 spectators in it watch 12 different plays. In each episode, we see something different and at different moments we exclaim: “Yes, this is about me!” We exclaim not aloud – it is forbidden to communicate with other guests. This can be done after, when we will gather at the set table to enjoy dinner and enjoy the discussion.
In general, perhaps, the participant can be advised to relax and have fun. Do not try to analyze how this is done and what feelings they are trying to arouse in us at the moment. Stop straining and peering, you can see something. As the organizers say, “the mirror is just a tool”, and what we can see in it depends on each of us.
“Mirror of Carlos Santos”
Creators: director Talgat Batalov, playwright Maxim Kurochkin, producer and author of the idea Yevgeny Kadomsky, artist Olga Nikitina, chef Ruslan Zakirov.
Address: st. Bolshaya Dmitrovka, 32, 5th floor.
Sessions at 18:15, 19:00, 19:45, 20:30, 21:15.
Ticket price from 5000 rubles.
Detailed information and tickets .