The Devil on Wall Street

An immersive production aims to enfold you in sex, horror, and high capitalism.

- JACKSON MCHENRY

SOMEWHERE EITHER very far above or below the street level of the Financial District—it’s hard to tell when you’ve spent a few hours stumbling around in the dark—I ended up in the American West. In one of many hidden rooms inside the labyrinth of Life and Trust, the floor turned into the soft earth of a corral, the walls were painted with a view of red-rock mesas, and a performer in cowboy gear was circling another person who happened to be wearing a horse mask. The horse was forced to the ground, then the other man stood above as the horse slowly rose up on its knees, seemingly tamed.

Watching the scene felt not unlike unlocking an achievement in a video game: I had been wandering up and down and across the six floors that compose this vast new immersive theater project, hoping to find something cool to brag about discovering, and here it was. The choreography, by Jeff and Rick Kuperman (of muddy rumble in The Outsiders), was moody and muscular, and the action was mysterious enough without slipping into anything too coy and winking. I had the feeling of relief—Okay, thank God I found something that really stood out—as both an audience member and a critic. Then, as the situation ended, the feeling of anxiety returned. The actors sped off to their next cues, and I scurried after them, hoping I had chosen a path that would return me to a compelling moment.

Those feelings, and indeed the general structure of Life and Trust, may be familiar to you if you happened to have strapped on a mask at Sleep No More over the past decadeplus of its run. Both are from the production company Emursive; Punchdrunk, the British group that also worked on Sleep No More, is not involved this time. (As Life and Trust opens, that Macbeth-via-Hitchcock experience, a big-enough 2010s sensation to have inspired an episode of