IN THE MADCAP MOTEL PLUS

Things aren't what they seem to be at the Madcap Motel, an immersive show currently running in downtown Los Angeles. Pulling tricks from the immersive theater of ' Sleep No More,' the all-encompassing digital scenery of TeamLab and just a hint of the otherworldly art of Meow Wolf, Madcap Motel's long-term ambitions, if it's able to survive a post-pandemic world, are something of an indoor theme park and a walk-in video game. 'Is this what camping is like?' I asked her. 'This is crazy,' texted my guest shortly after entering, and that was long before we spent 25 minutes lying on fake grass in a room outfitted with projections of vintage film and television while we envisioned our future plans, drifting into an imaginative state in which not even the exposed warehouse ceilings could distract us.

IN THE MADCAP MOTEL PLUS

The Madcap Motel experience starts in a lobby with a flowery, elongated couch - a Rose Bowl Flea Market find that looks as if it belongs on a set of a ’70s-era television show - and is filled with photo ops and actors (beware the walking bush), plus a somewhat sinister story line about time travel, shifting dimensions and a philandering motel magnate. You check in, maybe for an hour or two, but there's no spending the night or R-rated activity in these rooms lined with mirrors, descending lamps, mini-fish-tank-like dioramas, or oversize furniture designed to appear as if it's floating. 'They were like, 'How will they know it's not a motel?' I said, 'No, you're kinda supposed to think it might be a motel.'' 'A lot of my investors are older people,' says Madcap Motel founder Paige Solomon. Today, however, it's a family or date-night playground, a fake motel outfitted in midcentury yellows and browns that at times looks like a real one, a relic from an era when Los Angeles wasn't threaded with freeways. The word 'madcap,' rendered in all caps, is hidden behind a gate - the fence a holdover from the downtown location's past life as an industrial space. It's not a real motel, but, she says, 'you're kinda supposed to think it might be a motel.' (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) Paige Solomon is chief executive and creative director of the Madcap Motel, an art installation in Los Angeles with a 1960s vibe.

In the madcap motel