ABSTRACT
Ħ … that … urban theatre thing was stripped out totally back to black & blank irregular walls. Here & there concrete pillars prop up low murky ceilings. Between & above, added fly tower ends in utter darkness beyond streaming thunder flashes off & on. Default settings for Homo sapiens universe: heart-stopping black box experiment. Ħ At former stage-left one set-piece remnant: a small early Victorian zoological garden. High barricade frieze encloses wildlife overlooked by grand terraced villas. One immersive mise en scène, like shallow panorama of granite cliffs with many dark farcical doors (a.k.a. ‘Ħ’) shut tight to any offstage world. Primate amphitheatre set with glassy fourth wall in small gorilla house during Anthropocene: hanging ropes & performing platforms. Audience side, two humanoid movement artists—woman & man—rehearse improvised pavane. Stage side with real fur costumes: huge silverback lowland male, two glossy females, one ambivalent infant act out watching dancers, on & off. Ħ In hominid urban theatrical place fold-back seating-bank now always retracted. Site-specific recess presents very last mermaid alive. Blocked between monster propeller & rudder, singing echoing lament for dead sisters. Two spectral siblings rant at spectators as ocean pollution. Iron hull rusted, rotting away, final curtain soon. Cue: all child voyeurs cast adrift as sound effects conjure up deepwater horizon. Ħ After that nothing onstage anywhere looks like naturalism ever again. Arts Lab stagehand attacks fifth-wall with deafening flying weaponry. Arc lamp pulses strobe into patrons’ eyes. Stage director, blinded by crushed-on bowler, performs ghoulish suicide, pinned high on upstage wall. / Oriental musical helicopter hovers low down extinct tropical crater. Military zoom lenses score scantily clad puppet sprites in cube polythene box set with watery nuclear napalm special effects. Wild hash-tagged festival crowd crowds in for one-night stand of sprinkling closure. / Fade-up on reversing revolve, Solaris mothership rising high behind un-fireproofed bleachers. Late thespian prompt, match dropped alight. Comic-stunt fire chief tiptoes in with red-gel sparks gizmo, checks earlier flames caput. / Elizabethan flashback: auditoria cackles conflagration, old globe sparkling special effects everywhere ablaze still. Earth’s debut as smash hit premiere planetary spectacular. Ħ Centuries pass by, wrong entrance turn in installation labyrinth has lead feminist screaming don’t touch me. In pitch blackout, witness gently pushed against boards that tilt back to flat: stage coffin transformation. Live soil shoveled onto lid: inches from final call corpsing. Ħ Stripped-out urban venue was once a roaring printer’s workshop. Now in mock-up performance biome, expert survivalist cast try fixing long-run futures wish list: water plants animals air time energy filtration. Tragi-comic toxic drizzle dance is super hit big singing & writhing … all … fall … down get-up again. Break-a-leg final exit ceremonial produces earthly revival & un-faked optimism. Previews fresh Homo sapiens living Earth: ecosociality ecoumility technebiogeny econnectivity. Becomes negative feedback from elementary ecology drama going every which way as long running … slow show … genre … beyond … all … ĦĦĦ …
