310 Blog Post: Bat Out Of Hell

310 Blog Post: Bat Out of Hell

 

The play Bat Out of Hell was a remarkable rendition and adaption of an apocalyptical Peter Pan. The music itself was well accompanied with precise and fascinating acting and action sequences. One scene that I would want to talk about specifically that left an impression is the Strat’s motorcycle accident. I felt this scene perfectly surmised the cohesiveness of how the stage direction and props clearly aided in visually representing the lyrics within the songs and the continuation of the story. The scene in which I speak is the scene at the end of the first half of the musical, where the musical’s title track, Bat Out of Hell, makes its stage presence. The set begins with Raven played by Christina Bennington and Strat played by Andrew Polec, escape together, and begin riding through the city on a motorcycle and then Raven’s dramatic exit from Strat’s side, leaving him alone to finish the song. The fast-paced song continues to provide an atmosphere for the fast-paced love unraveling in front of the audience, until finally the song stops and a crash echoes through the theatre and the motorcycle on stage separates into pieces. The end of the song ends with Strat singing the last part of the song and eventually collapsing on the ground presumably dead bringing the end to the song and first half of the musical.

The interesting aspect of this scene is how the actions on stage along with the stage props develop the scene and display the interaction with the music and lyrics within the song. The important aspects of the musical were in the way that they utilized the stage direction to evoke those emotions within the lyrics visually. The use of visual symbol within Strat’s accident scene was compelling as well as intriguing to witness. The action of Strat wrapping the microphone cord around his neck seemed to symbolize the idea of “death coming soon” foreshadowing a graphic scenario coming upon the stage. The tragic accident is highlighted when the music is halted by a loud crashing noise and the motorcycle that Strat was on breaks apart in an artistically spectacular metal sculpture. At this point, Strat begins to sing in a softer melody and the lyrics begin to describe the accident scene in great detail, where visually we see the destroyed motorcycle, but we are envisioning Strat bleeding and broken in a ditch. The lyrics then begin to lead into a faster-paced melody with “a beating heart” as we hear Strat sing these lyrics we also see his emotion and imagine his broken body still thinking of Raven and can see the love development within the two main characters and how an over arc between these two characters is their connection between love and death. The motorcycle then reintegrates to form a heart shape in the air on stage overhead of Strat who now visually accepts the accident and bursts a blood bag onto his chest and falls to the floor as the song ends.

The idea that death and love are so intertwined within this musical’s main plot point is an interesting development that is seen throughout the entirety of the musical, yet it is not so obvious. The idea that Strat is free from aging implies a sense of evading death, in the sense of dying by old age, and the fact that he falls in love with a girl who does age invokes the idea that their love is not eternal, and that death always threatens their love. Even the scenes where Raven’s father, Falco played by Rob Fowler, threatens Strat’s life, which ultimately is the defining reason that Raven abandon’s Strat in the first place in order to save him, leading him to get into the accident. There are even scenes with Raven where it is suggested that she participates in self-harm and that she would rather be dead than live under her parent’s household, I suppose that is until she meets Strat. The idea that these two characters are connected through their ideas about danger and rebellion, yet they have this connection of death that bonds them to one another, yet their love would not be able to be in the sights of death. The musical is able to captivate this sentiment of death and love between the characters through its use of stage props and its dark theme that blankets the stage, with costumes, set, and even music.