The Lost Babylon.
Russell Fewster, director of the soon-to-open English adaptation
of Takeshi Kawamura's 1999 Japanese dystopian-noir theatre piece
'The Lost Babylon', admits that one of the most interesting
things about working on the firearm-heavy, rather homicidal
show is managing corpse arrangements.
"There's quite a body count at the end," Fewster explains, "and one of the bizarre things about directing the show is you get to the end and you've got all these bodies on stage, and there's this kind of grotesque, artistic pleasure in composing them all in a manner pleasing to the eye, which is kind of ironic considering they're all dead."
The story, set in a time Fewster maintains is "just around the corner", revolves around an amusement park where the bored and rich can indulge their senses in virtual killing, with their virtual victims actually the poor being paid to die realistically. A director and a screenwriter are attempting to make a film about this post-apocalyptic virtual killing realm when they are caught up in increasingly complex skirmishing, with the park's exploited workforce beginning to shoot back at their patrons. Fewster explains the confusing effects of all this.
"There's the world of the theme park, which you get used to, there's another world with a screenwriter on stage creating a film, and then [also] the ordinary world; so you've got three worlds, and [the play] shifts from one to the other at various points, hence it's quite a ride for the audience."
From this inter-world interplay confusion between reality and virtuality is generated, as Fewster explains. "You get to a point and think - is this real? Is this not real? Is this person really dead or are they making out they're dead? If they are dead how do you respond to that?'"
Enclosed in all this disarrayed reality is a serious, critical reflection on violence, of both the direct physical and murky systemic kind, driven by an emphasis on bullet projecting armaments.
"We're using guns as metaphors for violence - a gun in the hand is the ultimate expression of violence, and it's a metaphor for institutionalised violence as well, including the way we treat refugees, our treatment of people who are below the poverty line, and even control of information and advertising. So we explore a whole range of shades of violence."
Fewster and the team have gone to great lengths for authenticity of experience, all having "gone and shot a real gun", and even having sound-extraordinaire Matt Martin record the shots live for use in the production.
Fewster is also keen to point out that though the piece is heavily science fiction and film-noir influenced and apt for classification as 'dystopian', it is "no bigger an exaggeration of reality than reality is already."
Wil McGinley
 |
'The Lost Babylon' takes no prisoners at the Hartley Playhouse, UniSA Magill Campus, from Mon 6 March
|
|
