I took off my shoes to enter the theater. My glasses, too. Shoes were part of the culture, but it turns out that An Ark, an unpopular theater piece that was performed at The Shed in New York City, uses it. Magic Leap 2 glasses. And those don’t work with my prescription. I put my contact lenses in the bathroom before the show.
In a carpeted room with lots of people sitting in a circle, I put on some AR goggles. So are all the others. We sat together while holographic actors, including the legendary actor Ian McKellen, appeared around us.
Ark is an experiment, billed as “the first game created for mixed reality.” I saw the AR experience in focused shows before what I would call genre shows. But An Ark’s nearly 50-minute run time is probably the longest I’ve had continuously on a Magic Leap 2 headset. In the end, the glasses felt a little hot on my nose. I was determined to take them off.
My partner Bridget Carey and I both went to An Ark, which is running at The Shed until April 4, on a very cold day a few weeks ago. I still think about it. The experience was troubling. It’s emotional, but cold. It felt like we were in a live theater event, yet there were no live actors there at all.
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Corridors and walls invite you into the An Ark experience, preparing you for how to put on the headset.
What does this mean for the future of visual theatre? I never want the live actors to go. I don’t think that’s the point of this game, either. Every experience is presented as a memorial-like meditation in the liminal realm after death.
Four chairs (virtual) appear in a semicircle in front of me, and one by one, the players captured in volume appear. McKellen, Golda Rosheuvel, Arinzé Kene and Rosie Sheehy sleep as if they were sitting across from me. Eye contact, as Bridget said to me later. Also, it’s a sense of how they’re all vying for your attention.
My viewing area in the glasses is only wide enough for two of the four seats. I turned my head and looked ahead to see what the others were doing. The players talk to me, just me, looking me in the eye, passing on their stories: Do they know me? Do I know them?
Everyone in the theater space feels like they have these four actors sitting across from them. It is an illusion at the same time. But I don’t see who sees: I just see them sitting in a circle in front of me. That repetition may sound odd, but it works here. It ends up feeling like we’re all witnessing together.
And we share the same ambient sound. I see this in the middle, that the sound of the full room I was hearing, of being there with me, is there for everyone. At least, I think we are. I’m sure we are.
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I had to take off my glasses and put on contact lenses. Look closely, and you can see the virtual seats that I see in the lenses of the Magic Leap 2 headset, a little.
Why does this sound so deep…and dirty
Even in 2026, I haven’t seen many times where augmented reality is replacing the real thing. AR glasses have a challenge that has yet to be addressed: How do you make the visual experience you see in the real world safely and comfortably match with everyone else who is there, too, and who may not be seeing the same thing through their glasses?
Adding to the problem is that AR glasses are not something that many people are familiar with. True integrated headsets like Apple Vision Proi Samsung Galaxy XR and the current line of Meta Quest earphones can create a mixed reality that feels like it’s in your place, but no one wears them in public.
Magic Leap was the original inventor trying to make AR things happen. The game’s developer, Todd Eckert, was previously head of content development for Magic Leap.
He has produced two other theater productions with Magic Leap hardware in the past: Life (an art installation, featuring Marina Abramović) and Kagami (an AR concert piece with Ryuichi Sakamoto). The Ark feels like an extension of the idea and a challenge for us to consider how we can accommodate the portrayal of real characters. It’s a kind of transformation of the present moment: While the AI throws up many videos of artificially produced people, here I saw a visual presentation of a real simulation. I felt the difference.
Setting up a closed theater event for shared moments like The Ark is a step in the right direction. But I also don’t know if this kind of experience, in the long run, will still be interesting if the novelty of AR glasses is lost. Looking around, I got a sense of people experimenting with technology they had never used before. As I walked out of the 45-minute show and out the door to find our reserved shoes, I felt like I was stepping out of the culture.
Couldn’t I do this at home instead? Yes, but would it have the same feeling, alone in my cramped space without the joy of sharing it with others? That’s the thing. Although this $45, 45 minute show required me to go to the west side of Manhattan on a cold night, it also allowed me to feel almost alone. We are not yet in a world where many people have the tools to make this happen, let alone all come together to use it together.
But it’s also the games, seen from afar, that make an impact. I’ve worked with holographic trainers on Meta Quest, but it feels special to see this kind of virtual presence in a clean, unadulterated environment designed to receive it.
I’d love it more if I somehow didn’t need to bring my contact lenses, but that’s the reality of smart eyewear for now. So several smart glasses are made to support all kinds of prescriptions, and many don’t fit over glasses. The performance provided a prescription to help people, but up to -5. Bridget’s -6 order couldn’t be fully matched, either.
My “I’m in a real play” senses were activated, even though no live actors were there.
After that, surprisingly, you hunger for the truth
What The Ark does, however, is make me feel immersed in what is happening in the real world. I remember being in that room, seeing people. I take off my shoes. To feel myself.
And in the show itself, as the four actors — angels or spirits between the worlds of life and death, perhaps — begin to share memories of lives once lived, those that merge and dissolve and represent many people, maybe even me, I felt a message being conveyed to me. I walked through the door, leaving the show happy to be alive and excited to take a trip to the theater — even without the cast. Was that the whole idea? Maybe the ship is made of us.
I found myself thinking more about the real world as I delved deeper into wearable technology that is trying to connect and transform the world around me. The real world is stable and tangible and rich. I want to pay attention to you. Ark allowed me to do that while also being virtual, which is magic in itself.
