The Grand Paradise NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (73)
See it if you want to see one of the best immersive plays in the history of theater.
Don't see it if you get scared or intimidated by one on one interaction in an immersive setting. Read more
See it if You enjoy creativity on a grand scale, inventive theater, immersive experiences, a choose your own adventure. Have seen this show 3 times!
Don't see it if Being touched, nudity, alone in tight, dark spaces bother you.
See it if You enjoy other immersive theatre. Grand Paradise is a meld of the Sleep No More and Then She Fell approaches with a lighter feel.
Don't see it if You don't like to be interacted with by performers or if you need a clear narrative, even in immersive theatre, to enjoy yourself.
See it if you enjoy immersive theatre mixed with philosophical monologues. Unexpectedly deep while still managing to be fun - this piece is special.
Don't see it if frequent interactions with/being touched by actors turns you off, you don't want to think about your own mortality.
See it if you love the 70s vibe and you want a short escape from the stressful NYC city life to refresh your mind.
Don't see it if you are not into new age philosophy. And that you are uncomfortable of full male nudity and getting intimate with a stranger. Read more
See it if You like beautiful production design, you like immersive theater, you want to explore a feeling more than a set narrative, you like disco
Don't see it if You want a traditional narrative, you don't like walking around, you hate disco, you're feeling cynical, you don't like being touched
See it if You like immersive theater and/or modern dance. Or if you are into 70's nostalgia with an authentic feel -- particularly Fantasy Island.
Don't see it if You want clear plot or narrative, if you are afraid to be touched by a stranger or if you are looking for a 70s dance party (no disco here).
See it if You like being pushed out of your comfort zone; if you like being led on an adventure.
Don't see it if You don't like people touching you who you don't know.
Critic Reviews (24)
"'The Grand Paradise' the latest and lushest of the many immersive theater spectacles to set up camp in New York in recent years, traffics in instant nostalgia...The effect is of taking and remembering a wild vacation at the same time...Using the ’70s as a time frame turns out to have been an inspired idea...It winds up hitting home. Your stay at the 'Grand Paradise' lasts a precisely measured two hours. But I can promise you that when it’s over, you’ll have little idea how long you’ve been there."
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"The piece is a captivatingly sensual interactive adventure. After an initial group welcome, you wander through a labyrinth of locations, immersed in a whirl of music, dance and ’70s atmospherics...The show’s running themes are love, death and the space where they meet, otherwise known as nostalgia. This escapist world is our oyster, where each grain of sand in an hourglass has a shot at becoming a pearl."
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"'The Grand Paradise' is somewhat more structured than 'Sleep No More.'...During my two-hour stay, I caught (among other things) a dance party, a bar fight, and a young man dancing and disrobing on a beach...Some parts are more engaging than others. But on the whole, 'The Grand Paradise' is extremely impressive in the scope of its detail. Personally, I wouldn’t mind taking in another show to observe different characters."
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"As a piece of engineering, 'The Grand Paradise' is fairly impressive...But all this effort has resulted in a largely vacuous event...At least at a play -- a good one, anyway -- you get something to think about. 'The Grand Paradise' is rather like going to a party where the guest list consists of eccentric strangers."
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"One of the beauties of 'The Grand Paradise' is that it allows for so many of these smaller, intimate moments. The cast, all trained as dancers, effortlessly and elegantly guide the audience through the evening and truly make you feel as if the performance was being done exclusively for you...Audiences escape for two hours that both fly by and yet feel satisfyingly endless."
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“What this theatrical experience, conveyed by the brilliant minds at Third Rail Projects, gets right from the very start is that there is always an element of the forbidden when it comes to finding pleasure…The concept beautifully epitomizes what has become more than clear when it comes to the arts, which is the notion that in the digital age plot has truly become irrelevant when you could offer guests an experience instead.…The path followed by this reviewer was both erotic and moving.”
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"This immersive show holds the promise of a sensual, boundary-pushing adventure, but in reality it suffers from tiresome repetition and without a solid dramaturgical core there’s limited bang for your substantial buck...It's challenging to give over completely to an environment that is tightly controlled, vaguely executed, and lacking in any real risks...Nostalgia can only get you so far if it’s denuded of meaning...For a show about sex and desire, it was quite tepid and tame."
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“'The Grand Paradise' can be a fun, hip and sensuous two-hour holiday...One difference could be crucial to your enjoyment...The context in 'The Grand Paradise' is less specific (the 1970s), its cultural allusions less direct and less substantive (Fantasy Island comes to mind)...What’s on offer here may be a kind of faux-nostalgia, and a hip factor that may exert a kind of peer pressure."
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