View: BELOW
What lies deep in the subterranean chambers of a closed medical facility may haunt you beyond any cure.
a Halloween Scene Los Angeles View for Immersive Scene L.A.
Upstairs, they’ve created what is turning out to be an instant classic in Los Angeles: Hospital of Emotions*, where numerous artists have transformed 80 rooms into original and memorable works of walk-in art. Just as Urban Lights at LACMA is a must-stop for visitors to our city, so too has this exhibit quickly earned a spot on many shortlists. The open-world experience runs through early January.
It’s what exists in the basement, though, a very closed world indeed, that might send a few shivers down your spine in the short Halloween-time immersive BELOW. Created for the spooky season as a kind of companion production to the upstairs museum, BELOW is an interactive experience that allows a handful of guests to tour the bowels of the shuttered facility together through a darkish storyline that includes ghoulish nurses, tormented patients, and otherworldly entities from which there may be no escape.
As the lights flicker, then dim, in the main-floor hallway, and a static-filled distant voice comes through the intercom, you feel something change. As the sun sets over Los Angeles, a darker vibe as well descends upon the facility. Eerie music then filters in as you line up for the elevator that will take you down into the subterranean corridors where the narrative unfolds.
Before our group ventures below, however, the Intake Nurse (Ty Amato) asks us coolly if we want to survive the evening? An auspicious start. Her list of rules hopefully gives us a fighting chance of doing so.
Then it’s time to go down.
Moments later, the elevator door pops open and we are standing before Nurse Raphaela (Penny Wiggins), in our first glimpse of the normally off-limits basement. This forgotten floor, indeed the entire facility, has been abandoned since 2020, plenty of time for cobwebs to accumulate and perhaps wayward spirits to gather, awaiting the reemergence of visitors (aka Halloween enthusiasts) in this naturally spooky environment.
Despite the dread of the environment, Raphaela greets us with a smile and a good sense of humor, taking away, momentarily at least, any concern for what evils might lie ahead. “Goodness gracious, you scared me,” says the teasing nurse. Don’t worry. She and whatever else exists down here will soon return the favor.
Thus begins your walking tour of below and the narrative story of BELOW. At first, it’s a few welcoming jokes, a bit of history of the shuttered real hospital, and some casual back and forth between the convivial nurse and the guests, but then a sudden appearance of a patient running by startles the group. He’s ranting about a “Patient 13” as he disappears down a darkened hallway.
Raphaela explains that the ominously numbered 13 was also known as the Lost Patient, a nurse herself before she fell ill, or perhaps went mad, and soon disappeared entirely somewhere into the ether. Over the next half-hour, the tour will reveal patient rooms, specimen labs, an autopsy space, and ultimately the answers behind her disappearance.
There will be chilling encounters with mysterious characters like Heart (Tyler Antoine Gordon), a tortured-looking Obstetrics Nurse (LaTalya Gaffney) who holds important answers to the mystery, and the hospital’s all-business psychologist (Ali Mariko), whose timely appearance proves significant. And if you’re lucky, or would that be unlucky, Patient 13 herself, whom you’ve been searching for, will finally be revealed. Never far behind will be the demons (Michael "Thrash" Ornelas and Nathan Shrader) to fear and outrun, or maybe even overcome if you’re brave enough to try, just like Patient 13 was
Director/creator of the BELOW experience, Dasha Kittredge, packs a lot into this intimate, eerie experience from a fast-paced script by Annie Lesser. The actors, sets, and tech elements all come together ably in a satisfying package of Halloween-time spookiness. The story, which carries a mental health undertone, creeps up on you as you move through the darkened passageways, tightly packed rooms, and ultimately the hospital’s cavernous warehouse-like final-act setting, where you now come to understand the full story of Patient 13.
The ensemble cast all do fine work here, with special mention to Wiggins as Raphaela (at our show; others play this role at different times) for her performance and her duties as tour guide through the subterranean world, as well as Ornelas for his incredibly frightening presence and voice work as the first demon. Tech elements – lighting by Dak and sound by Nir Micha, along with well-conceived sets by Evan Woods and Royva - elevate the whole experience, as does the atmospheric music created by Jean-Yves Ducornet.
Kittredge keeps the whole thing flowing, over multiple shows each night, with a fluid style of direction that effectively moves guests through the immersive experience while still serving the story well. The biggest star of the night is the facility itself. The old hospital’s basement tells stories all its own around every dark corner and presents an organic eeriness without any adornment needed. That there happens to be a fun, spooky, and well-rendered interactive play within its walls is just a bonus.
now thru Nov 1
at Hospital of Emotions
2131 West 3rd St.
Los Angeles, CA
$43 or $78 with bundle to Hospital of Emotions After Dark**
*Look for our View of Hospital of Emotions in the coming weeks.
** Hospital of Emotions continues the spookiness after BELOW (along with the 80 artist exhibits) at Dark upstairs.
