"In this job you keep moving but don't get anywhere," said the bellhop in the elevator as he escorted me up to my room at the Hotel Savoy, the ephemeral interactive production for "an audience of one" at the Goethe-Institut's uptown location across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's an old elevator operator joke, but like most everything else in this bewitching performance, the comment takes on a double meaning. The inhabitants you encounter during your 50 minute visit take on the air of ghosts who've checked in forever at a formerly grand hotel. What is it that Delbert Grady says to Jack Torrance in The Shining? "No sir, YOU are the caretaker. You've always been the caretaker..."

But to be clear, although it's at turns chilling and unsettling, Hotel Savoy is no ghost story. Inspired by Austrian Jewish author Joseph Roth's 1924 novel of the same name, the production explores themes of dislocation, delusion and disorientation. You're told nothing when you arrive; doors open into a grand empty lobby, where only a ticking clock greets you. From there you're escorted up to a shabby hotel room, and the door is shut behind you. You wait alone, afraid to sit down on the bed in case there's someone hiding underneath itching to grab your ankles. The sounds of a maid vacuuming and singing to herself filter through the walls, and a certain spooky suspense fills there air. Then suddenly there's a knock on the door, and...

To say more would be to ruin the mysterious surprises and baffling encounters that await at Hotel Savoy. Suffice it to say that Dominic Huber and his ensemble have made imaginative use of the early 20th century Beaux-Arts style townhouse, enhancing it with rich sound design and some stunning set devices. In the end, the experience remains elusive and ambiguous, highly atmospheric but inscrutable. On my way out, I stopped and signed the guest book ("Thank you for this creepy reminder of my homelessness.") and, flipping through it, saw that someone had scrawled in giant letters across an entire page, "This could have been so much better!" At the time, I thought it was a churlish comment, but not entirely untrue. Looking back, however, I think that reaction says a lot more about the guest than the hotel staff. I suspect that your visit to Hotel Savoy is, like life, largely what you make of it, and ultimately defined more by the questions you ask than answers you're given.