Wicked Lit 2016

Wicked Lit is a nonprofit immersive theater company staged by Unbound Productions in an actual Altadena mausoleum and cemetery, and the 2016 run built its three stories around a Camp Mountain View theme, greeting arriving guests with tents and unsettlingly cheerful camp counselors before splitting the crowd into groups of about thirty.

The first story, From Beyond, unfolded inside the mausoleum: a scientist breaks into another plane of existence, and the audience follows his accused friend racing to shut the machine down before more creatures cross over. The Shadowy Third moved the action to the mausoleum's main hall for a darker tale of a husband enslaving and eventually poisoning his own family, resolved when his murdered daughter's ghost turns on him. The night closed in the cemetery with Anansi and the Demons, pitting a clever shaman against white settlers exploiting the local village.

The stories, the acting and the set design all landed. The cast held up under the strange demands of immersive theater — staying in character while thirty guests trail behind them — and the camp counselors were as entertaining during intermissions as the main stories themselves. Real mausoleum and cemetery locations did a lot of the atmospheric work, and specific props, like the hospital bed used in The Shadowy Third, left a lasting impression.

The complaints are minor. Groups of thirty occasionally blocked sightlines, though a dedicated guide for each story meant no one missed key plot beats. A few props in From Beyond — its ghostly creatures — were lit too brightly and read as comical against otherwise well-crafted, moodier scenery. Over three hours and $40, neither issue dented an evening the review calls one of the year's best, with Wicked Lit returning annually around Halloween.