In the past, I’ve experienced plays on a very shallow level, enjoying the sets and the plot lines without deep analysis into questions of technical decisions, but in London I feel pressured to pick up on details of directorial decisions that I otherwise would ignore. And thus, I have been toying with the feeling of being overwhelmed.
While I enjoy a vivacious spectacle, this week I found myself almost garishly immersed in the plays via their obnoxious sets. The Open Air Theatre’s rendition of As You Like It could scarcely have been more different from the original Shakespearean staging suggested by the performance at The Globe (i.e. no physical props that could not be wielded, a simple reliance on ornate costuming to provide spectacle – while it's true that the version we saw included extraneous elements, the setting remained as loyal).
When the play opened on a metallic stage surrounded by trash-infested waters, I was certain that the director was to make a point about environmentalism or the class differences inherent in the bourgeoisie business executive vs. the blue-collar trash collector dichotomy of Oliver and Orlando. The trash floating in the waters was never addressed, and as the scene developed to show a Bayou Forest of Arden, I found myself too distracted with attempted-analysis of the technical decisions of the staging to pay ample attention to the plot. Tack on the grossly-realistic slain deer, the minister who rides in on a bicycle, the minstrels singing pop-folk hunting songs, and the saturated sound whirring in over the speakers (and the apparently real lion roars flowing in menacingly from the speakers as if diegetic sound) and I am inundated.
As I was never inclined to read it on my own, my comprehension of As You Like It is entirely fueled by this class. It’s actually quite lucky that I’d seen The Globe’s version before The Open Air Theatre’s, because I could afford to be wholly distracted by the staging without losing too much of the story; I already knew that Oliver was pressured by Duke F. to find his brother, so I wasn’t completely out of sorts to look away for a second and then find him bloodied and blinded.
More important than my own visceral experience, the obnoxious set techniques distracted from the themes of the play. There was almost nothing to suggest the queerness of the play that was so obvious in last week’s presentation. The actors were cast according to the genders of the characters and the physicality of the set propelled the story into the 21st century (remember when Rosalind watched a recap of a wrestling match on a smart phone?). When you have nothing on stage but the people, you can only pay attention to the people. When you have nothing on stage but the people, their tire swings, their ramshackle cabins, their boots and gym bags, their bicycles, their rubbish, their wrestling pin, and their banjos, you can only pay attention to the people, their tire swings, their ramshackle cabins…
More to look at does not equal more to enjoy. Using a surreal carcass of a deer in an otherwise inconsequential hunting scene means that the audience will audibly gasp at the use of a surreal carcass of a deer, not divine consequence from the hunting scene.
Before I get into the real meat of the matter of Bat Out of Hell, to which I had no context before last night, I wanted to do a bit of research and see what critics thought of the completely over-the-top set. Jane Kemp of whatsonstage.com, who enjoyed the play and recommends it to her readers, admits that “this is a long show, so there’s time to consider the thin plot, and the missed opportunities for character development in the members of The Lost tribe.” It’s true that the play is long, running around two and half hours including the intermission, but I honestly didn’t notice the length; instead, I was drawn in and tossed around by the immense amount of spectacle (swooping, imprisoned bodies over cages, bursts of flames, a car that crashes into the orchestra pit). Yet her acknowledgement of character development is apt; I feel like I missed a lot of character development not because it wasn’t there, and not because it was lost in time, but because I was too distracted by elements like the live-streaming at the top of the stage to notice key plot points like the brawls playing out on the bottom of it.
Matt Breen of timeout.com also raves about the play. He says that “Director Jay Scheib’s SFX-laden production and set designer Jon Bausor’s dystopian vision are as grandiose as to be expected, their visual cues coming from the lurid cover art of the albums… [Polec, who plays Strat] occasionally flashes a bemused look at the audience which reflects what we’re all thinking: ‘What the bloody hell is actually going on?’ Probably best not to ask, and by the final reprise, if you’re dwelling on that, you’re really missing the point here.”
Am I? I enjoyed the play, don’t get me wrong, but the fact that the “dystopian vision” was as grandiose as it was meant that I lost out on what WAS actually going on right in front of me. I could kick myself for not noticing Sloane staring at her husband as he’s baptized into the Lost tribe. It took me a very long while to realize that the live-stream was live at all, and that I could look away from it towards Raven’s bedroom where it was (literally!!!) happening right in front of me.
Even if it is something that is “to be expected” as a callback to album cover art of the original Bat, the garish technique of distraction pulled me away from the story. I understand that the play is meant to draw connections to "Peter Pan" – and I think it did so, particularly with the clever use of shadow work – but I am still struggling to find any sense of moral lesson or theme to Bat Out of Hell. I can’t derive a theme here like I can for As You Like It because the play lacks intuitive context on its own.
Was the purpose of this play to manipulate the meanings of Meat Loaf’s songs to fit into a story? Was I supposed to be amazed by the love between Raven and Strat on its own, with the ostentatious set as just something to strengthen my impression? Am I supposed to draw connections between Falco's tumbling into the water and prodigal return as a punk dude to the ritual of baptisms, the idea of cleansing-of-original-sin? Should I feel compelled to draw parallels between Bat and "Peter Pan" to the point of oblivion, finding problematic imagery in the casting and predictability of either work?
Perhaps some of you feel differently. If you’ve gotten all the way down here, please comment and let me know if you were able to find the purpose within all of the strobe lights, explosions, and set changes.
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