"The Apocalyptic Road Show" at The New Ohio Theatre
“The Apocalyptic Road Show” Written by John Clancy Directed by Peter Clarke Reviewed by David Roberts, Chief Critic Theatre Reviews Limited
Around 95 or 96 C.E., John of Patmos managed to piss off the Roman government. That was not difficult to do. But John wouldn’t let the Jesus thing rest and continued to proclaim “good news” all over Pilate’s place. So the Romans threw him in the hoosegow on Patmos Island, guarded him well (as well as they guarded that earlier tomb one would think) and put John who might have been out of his mind out of their mind. Undaunted, this John knew he had to keep up the preaching to the folk back home so they wouldn’t return to their past pagan days worshipping the Sun (no, not the “Son” – clever, huh?) He knew the Romans knew little about apocalyptic literature (Daniel, Ezekiel, Enoch and the millennialist early Christian lot) so he wrote a letter to the newly converted back home on the continent in language the guards and the censors wouldn’t understand: dreaded horses delivering dreaded messages to hopefully awaken the faithful to follow once more “the Way.” The Romans thought he was a nut and faithfully delivered the epistle to its intended audience. John’s good news was that the Roman government was flimsy stuff and their evil ways would not last. The Romans, in fact, had a great fall or two, but there were plenty of autocracies (right up to the present).
Fast forward two thousand years and another John (of sound mind) riffs that revelatory letter Revelation. This time, though, this John tells it as it is: there’s not a whole lot of good news to deliver and the faithful, well, that’s another story indeed. The news to those faithful this time is delivered by two of the most fascinating characters: Gdjet, a revivified but worn Norma Desmond type and Lulu, a Velma-type character who could have just finished a round of “What Ever Happened to Class” with “Chicago’s” merciless Mama.
Through a delightful series of pre-paradise interviews with Gdjet and Lulu, visits from the Four Horsemen (and women) of the Apocalypse, and burlesque-type vignettes. Gdjet and Lulu’s task is to inform the audience that the cosmos has come to its end. This night will be the last night and at 8:12 p.m. it’s “light out” for good.
To prepare for the end of days, Gdjet and Lulu rehearse what’s wrong with creation. Lulu laments, “The fact of an invisible, all-powerful Creator and Judge in the Sky who doesn’t seem to like us very much.” And of this all-powerful One’s creation of humans, Gdjet complains, “Right. Born-to-die, itty-bitty, completely ineffectual copies of…the Great Original. Kind of a crap deal, really.” Things have not gone well since humanity crawled out of Eden after it pissed God off.
The visits of the Horsemen and the burlesque scenes (missing only placards and an easel to announce them) counterpoint Gdjet’s and Lulu’s pre-entry-into-Paradise interviews. The former dramatically showcase the continued “fall of humankind” and the latter – the interviews – highlight humanity’s heinous hubris.
The audience chuckles throughout the rehearsal of the worst humankind have had to offer since day one. And this laughter at horrific events is expected. In his 1905 “Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious,” Sigmund Freud explored why people laugh at seemingly inappropriate times. We laugh at what we otherwise would collapse under. For example, we laugh at Lulu’s repugnance at “fat bastards” and “disabled” who are always in your way with their electric carts. Truth is, of course, Gdjet and Lulu have shown us here – and throughout “The Apocalyptic Road Show” – for who we really are: compassionless, spineless hypocrites who think the same things they do about the same people we secretly abhor.
Famine, Conquest, War, and Death (ultimately) ride through to remind the audience of some of humanity’s worst moments from their particular expertise and point of view. In the end, after Death’s Norma Desmond-esque performance and after the “click” and the “creak” that signal the end, the hosts count down to the end and to “lights out” when only the good will awaken in Heaven. Gdjet and Lulu and very few other righteous souls will be there. There won’t be any bastards or poor people in Heaven, according to Gdjet’s and Lulu’s understanding, and certainly no non-whites. But after a couple countdowns and a blackout, the audience is still at “the loading dock” of the theatre where Gdjet and Lulu confess that “nothing is going to happen tonight.”
Gdjet and Lulu make a bittersweet appeal to those they never thought they would see again:
“To pretend that everything is fine, that we are good that this means something, that it’s not all just a howling void ten thousand times beyond our ken, that when it ends (and it will end) it will have added up to something, that when it ends (and it will end) we will have left a mark on something, that it mattered, that we mattered, every agonizing instant, every choice and each betrayal, we’ll pretend that in the end we did the best we could.”
In a significant way, Gdjet and Lulu expressed sacrificial love and the death of their fantasy about Heaven is a death for our “sins,” a redemptive moment, a crashing of the gates of hell, so we might view the possibility of meaningful, productive lives at least one more time.
Who said class, fine morals, and good breeding, and decency no longer exist? Thank you Gdjet and Lulu. And thank you John Clancy for this brilliant and challenging gift of theatre.
THE APOCALYPTIC ROAD SHOW
Written by John Clancy. Directed by Peter Clerke. New York Assistant Director, John Clancy. Musician and Composer, Tim Brinkhurst. Set and Costume Design by Ali Maclaurin. Lighting Design by Fred Uebele. Sound Operator, Briana James.
WITH: Catherine Gillard and Nancy Walsh.
Presented by Clancy Productions in Association with The Occasional Cabaret as part of the Ice Factory Festival 2012 at the New Ohio Theatre’s new West Village space at 154 Christopher Street between Greenwich and Washington Streets in New York City.
Performances are Wednesdays - Saturdays though July 28 at 7pm. Tickets are $18 for adults and $12 for students/seniors and can be purchased online at http://www.NewOhioTheatre.org or by calling SmartTix at 212-868-4444.
Permalink | Posted by David Roberts on Friday, July 27, 2012
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