Helena Bonham Carter Guides a Dreamy Dark Path in Punchdrunk’s Immersive VIOLA’S ROOM — Review

A few months after Sleep No More ended its landmark run, Punchdrunk returns to New York with Viola’s Room, a smaller but even more all-consuming immersion that isolates, envelops and thrills. If that walkthrough theatrical experience emphasized the capabilities of physical storytelling, encouraging side quests and bewildered ogling at performers and fellow audience members, this one is all about the pensive powers of solitude and the inner mindscapes it can create. 

The company’s artistic director Felix Barrett, who conceived, directed (with Hector Harkness) and designed (with Casey Jay Andrews) the hourlong piece, has outfitted The Shed’s main theater space into a maze of dark passageways. Once you enter in groups of six, headphones are distributed, instructions to follow a series of sequentially activated lights are given, silence is mandated and feet must be bared. If this last bit at first seems an outrageous ask, they require you apply sanitizer. And as soon as you begin to wonder the point of it, you start to feel it.

Through Gareth Fry’s note-perfect sound design, we get the inimitable voice of Helena Bonham Carter, narrating the story of a young girl with a primeval call to dance who escapes nightly into a mystical dream of castles and lacy ballet slippers. The initial hallways of a quaint English cottage give way to her bedroom, fixed up with coquettish drapes (it’s a Bonham Carter joint, after all) and Tori Amos posters. Once the dream begins in earnest, all five senses are activated, most impressively through the walkway’s changing textures.

Darkness is a key element – sometimes cave darkness that excites, scares, and lands you exactly where Punchdrunk wants you. But Simon Wilkinson’s lighting, used sparingly and masterfully, draws attention to shadow puppetry, scene-setting installations and wonderfully evocative props, all exquisitely realized with an inventiveness that never lets up. Aside from the narration, the ears are treated to a soundscape that includes grungy acts like Soundgarden and Massive Attack, as well as orchestral pieces reminiscent of the hypnotism of the Vertigo score and the enchantment of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête, with its alluring dream logic, also seems a guiding inspiration.

Bonham Carter’s voice work is pitch perfect, reading Daisy Johnson’s adaptation of a 1901 short story by Barry Pain, “The Moon-Slave,” which follows a girl’s dreamy choreomania. Johnson grounds it in a story that hints at the loss of innocence, the troubles of girlhood and the inherent trauma of growing up.

My one quibble – and how significant it is depends on how much you seek sturdy narrative drama from this kind of thing – is with the difficulty of processing each turn of the story as you focus on the dazzling visuals, or just keeping one foot in front of the other in the dim, windy environs. Viola’s troubles take a snappy backseat the few times Bonham Carter whispers “Move quickly” and the light queues beckon a speedy canter through paths I can only describe as harrowing. (There are no jump scares or secret doors, though, as a debriefer explains at the top.)

But with this level of consummate immersion, I’ll easily throw my arms up, chalk it up to, “Well it’s supposed to be surreal and overwhelming – it’s a dream!” and enjoy the artistry. It didn’t take my date and I more than a few steps, out in the waking world, to begin planning our next trip.

Viola’s Room is scheduled through October 19, 2025 at The Shed on West 30th Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.