Review: Immersed in ‘Closing Time at the Moonside Cafe’, Where Audience Becomes Detective

By Mingsi Ma

Directed by Connor McCanlus and written by Sean Collier and Renee Rabenold, Closing Time at the Moonside Cafe is an original interactive theater piece that invites audiences to immerse themselves in an otherworldly club. The immersive experience is largely a success, blurring the line between audience and performers, and between the stage and everyday space. It also poses intriguing questions on how to balance the story arc with immersion and how to piece individual experiences into a cohesive narrative.

Thanks to Heather Heitzenrater’s set design, Vigilance Theater Group transforms Three Stories downtown into a convincing cabaret. A bar, a hallway, seating areas, and cabaret tables, a gallery wall of mirrors, and designated spaces for the band and singers are seamlessly incorporated into the set. Dark and enigmatic. Reflective, foil-wrapped tabletop statues catch and refract the light from a shiny spinning disco ball, casting an iridescent glow across the room.

As soon as I walk into the “Moonside Cafe”, the theatrical experience begins. The bartender, played by Gwen Arbuckle, greets me with a row of drinks in front of her, but asks me to check whether all the windows are properly sealed before she can serve me. The receptionist, played by John Feightner, checks my ID, which, for a second, I worry I have forgotten to bring. Beyond the usual greetings, he asks me an odd question: “How would you pronounce your name backwards?” (Surprisingly, I know the answer!)

The entrance to this cabaret is draped with a heavy velvet curtain that piques the audience’s curiosity. Closing Time at the Moonside Cafe opens with just such a mystery, luring the audience in: something is off about this place.

The setup brilliantly blurs the boundary between the traditional stage and the audience. We, the audience, are encouraged to wander through the space and strike up conversations with the performers, all of whom play members of the Moonside Cafe staff. What I love most about this performance is the amount of improvisation and unpredictability it allows. As the entertainment begins, the night soon goes unplanned: the lights flicker alongside an odd chime. Someone drops a heavy box of silverware. Suddenly, confusion, fear, and unease flash across the faces of every Moonside employee. From then on, our audience becomes the detectives to uncover the truth.

Clues to the bizarre situation emerge through conversations with the staff and by poking around the space. Before I even realize it, I am pulled aside by the bouncer played by Max Petrunya into the hallway. At the same time, other audience members find themselves engaged in conversations with different members of the Moonside Cafe. The result is a highly unique and personalized experience. Every night of the presentation is different, and every interaction unfolds in its own way. I low-key wish I had brought a friend so that we could compare our unique encounters after leaving the space.

During these conversations, I become more than a spectator. I become an acting partner to whichever performer I am interacting with. Within this constructed environment, my role constantly shifts between audience member and improviser. That blurring of identities is, what I believe, Closing Time’s most effective trick of immersion. Given the small capacity of Three Stories and the 13 cast members in Closing Time, the audience-to-performer ratio is low enough that audience members are almost guaranteed an intimate experience if they choose to participate.

The story of Closing Time is science-fiction-like, imbued with a sense of playful imagination. The playwright Sean Collier and Renee Rabenold have done a phenomenal job of building suspense by craftily weaponizing the unknown and information disparity among the audience. The lighting design by Remy Porter effectively casts a variety of warm- and cool-colored lights on the performers and set, heightening the mystery. The lighting cues are executed with a high level of precision.

Allie Burns plays Livy in Closing Time at the Moonside Cafe. (Image courtesy of Vigilance Theater Group.)

Harper York plays Mercury on the left, and Bradleigh Bell plays Knox on the right. (Image courtesy of Vigilance Theater Group.)

However, I do have to point out that Closing Time seems to overbuild suspense, which in turn undermines the story arc and theme. Throughout the 90-minute immersive performance, the ultimate revelation arrives only around the final 20 minutes. Before that point, the information conveyed through either the audience-performer interactions or performers’ interactions among themselves feels sporadic and does not meaningfully advance the story arc. Given the science-fiction-like setup, the contextual details revealed through these interactions also feel limited. It’s like being kept emotionally on the hook with only minimal fragments of clarity to sustain engagement, without enough momentum for the story to feel as though it is truly progressing – until the very end, in a sudden manner.

In terms of the moment of revelation, it reminds me of a classroom where a professor tries to lead students toward the correct answer. Kudos to director Connor McCanlus for embracing the creative risk of having performers ask the audience to share the clues they have received to piece together the puzzle. In execution, however, such audience–performer interaction at the moment of revelation risks diluting the intensity the show has built up, as the climactic moment is entrusted to the audience.

Without spoiling the play, Closing Time explores the duality that exists within all of us. For example, someone can be kind and agreeable but also indecisive and eager to please people. Playwright Sean Collier and Renee Rabenold have chosen a meaningful and fascinating theme, and the story’s conception provides a strong foundation for exploration. However, the immersive theater format, which requires performers to move through the space and engage with individual audience members, appears to come at the expense of character development.

When the theme centers on our shifting presentation of the “self”, a better understanding of each character’s personality can help land the theme more naturally. Still, with performers moving throughout the space and audiences relying on a series of encounters that may or may not happen to learn about them, character development can become fragmented. As a result, the thematic revelation in the final 20 minutes feels more stated than earned. Here is a missed opportunity to weave the thematic exploration more tightly into the story development, rather than concentrating on its conclusion.

Closing Time eventually has a fun, theatrical ending moment that further toys with the use of space. Ultimately, the play succeeds in creating immersion and offers a novel experience that reverses the audience’s role. I imagine it could also be a wonderful introduction to theater for people who do not usually attend traditional productions. The negotiation between the immersive experience and the storytelling highlights the challenge of pulling individualized, fragmented encounters together into a complete narrative.

TICKETS AND DETAILS

Closing Time at the Moonside Cafe by Vigilance Theater Group runs from June 12 to June 27 at Three Stories, 937 Liberty Ave. Learn more and buy tickets here: https://events.humanitix.com/moonside-cafe

Mingsi Ma is a critic, arts writer, and creative industry professional. https://mingsima.com