The Rope Rating
LENGTH
1 Hour
PRICE
$65
LOCATION
LA
The Rope Immersive Theater Review
Read the synopsis below at your own discretion. We personally recommend seeing these shows with a clear mind. If you plan on attending The Rope, we suggest you do not read the synopsis.
Inside the room a story teller began to lay out a tale. He told us about the land of Conscientia and how to get there. We were given small satchels and told to use them collect any items we acquire. Then we were led into an old fashioned freight elevator and blindfolded. We rose slowly in the darkness, one of the cooler parts of the experience.
Once at the top, we were moved and un-blindfolded in a new area with different scenes setup. In one area a knight was dying slowly under a tree, a king going crazy in another. A woman with bleeding eyes desperately emplored you to help her. Sages (like fortune tellers) guided us to interact with each of these different scenes. Once you had interacted, you received a token for your satchel.
The story and characters felt very much like a Renaissance Faire. The sages even had taro like cards. The characters told a story of magic and shamans and death. We could have been in a backstory of a side character from the Lord of the Rings.
After thirty minutes we had spoken to all of the figures and gathered all of our tokens. The blind folds were put back on our heads and we were led up a good number of stairs. We came out on the roof, with a beautiful nighttime Los Angeles skyline around us.
In the middle of the open roof was a teepee with a single woman inside. We handed her tokens and she read us our future. Then she waved us away and the night was over. We walked down the brightly lit stairs and out into the dark alley. Overall the entire show was about one hour.
The Rope Immersive experience : The Good
The actors
The story teller at the beginning really set a great starting tone for the event. He weaved a story with his words and actions that entranced us. Later, upstairs, we felt the intensity of the dying knight who begged that we learn from our mistakes. And we felt a slight amount of fear when the king physically threw us onto the ground.
The actors stayed in character completely which we really appreciated. They did a great job with the material they had to give us. It’s great that there are so many talented actors in Los Angeles.
The Tokens
We liked the concept of the tokens. We received wooden chips that ensured we had visited all the necessary characters. It is a unique idea that we have not found with any of the other immersive events. It felt like a fun 1990s computer game, where had had to collect objects to use later. Plus, it helped the actors and ourselves know where we needed to go in an otherwise somewhat confusing environment.
The Bad aspects of our experience
The Set
When presenting the concept of visiting a new world of Conscientia, the set is very important. We were super excited by the hooded figure in the alleyway, the fire and the freight elevator at the beginning. Unfortunately, the set design fell apart pretty quickly afterwards.
Black sheets tried to hide the white plaster walls. A pair of thin plastic trees would represent a marshy swamp. After visiting a theater like Sleep No More in New York, this world felt cheap and hurriedly thrown together.
The Organization
Even with only 6 people in our group we found that we were always in each others’ way. There was a good amount of waiting as the person in front of us interacted with the actor. It made the experience dull and repetitive as we re-listened to the shpiel we had just heard given to the person before us.
There were characters in Red robes who were there to help, but they couldn’t seem to speed up the process. There ended up being numerous bottle necks in the process where guests had to wait on others. We aren’t sure if this was solely our group or a problem with the event in general
The Story
Not being one for fantasy, we ended up becoming quickly confused with the storyline. We found the names too fantastical and hard to remember. It was also hard to keep track of things as we jumped from one character to another. It was definitely better suited for someone used to playing Dungeons and Dragons, reading Lord of the Rings, and attending Renaissance Faires. Our brains just weren’t ready for that sort of intricate fantasy storyline.
We still aren’t sure if we actually made it Conscientia, or if we had always been there. We also felt that the story ended very abruptly and without a climax. If you are into fantasy, this may be a more exciting and interesting storyline. Even then, we think people would have a hard time understanding everything that is thrown at them.
The Rope Immersive Theater Review Summary
We weren’t the biggest fans of The Rope. The set was almost non existent, and the story would only be interesting to Renassaince junkies. We were impressed by the acting, but even that couldn’t keep us immersed in the world of Conscientia.
