off-stage right

I have been following updates on Facebook about what seemed like an insane and crazy adventure in theatre – no I am not talking about Spiderman and whether or not it will happen. 

One of my absolute favorite people in the world is the amazing and talented fight director Rick Sordelet.  There are very few people in the theatre industry who can hold a candle to Rick in terms of kindness, generosity, good nature and talent.  For months Rick has been sending out Facebook updates like – worked with the horses today and the gladiators are amazing (not his real updates just my summary of them – his are much more entertaining). 

All of this is because Rick is working on what I think has to be the wildest and ambitious shows attempted in modern day theatre, Ben Hur Live.  EVERYONE who reads this post should also go see the website for the show.  The video intro and website are pretty cool (if this translates to the “stage/arena” it could be a rival to Cirque du Soleil in terms of eye candy, precisions, and amazing feats!). 

Of course most folks know the story – if you don’t here is the Wikipedia link.  The show is fifteen years in the making; features over 100 animals, from birds to horses, and over 400 actors from all over Europe; uncountable special effects, and music by Stewart Copeland!  Take that Spidey! 

Now whether the story will be swallowed by the spectacle (how can it not be) or what the show will actually end up being as an audience experience is still to be sorted out – it could be a jaw-dropping, totally enveloping experience or something equivalent to a skit at a local carnival fun house, but either way it is the definition of true theater spectacles.  I am hoping for the tingling, out of body, immersive experience myself because this is close insane spectacle that was integral to the early history of theater.  After all this is as close as we will probably come to recreating something as monstrous as an ancient Rome’s Naumachia.  The show will start in London in September and than tour Europe.

No matter what the end result of the production’s performance is, I can’t even begin to imagine what opening night will be like or the first full performance!

A recent London Times article Ben Hur Live coming to London’s O2 Arena captures just a bit of the insanity of the rehearsal process and the undertaking of such a ambitious project.

The voice of the director, slightly weary, booms across the ISS Dome, in Düsseldorf. “A little more wailing, prisoners!” Then another voice translates this into Russian, then another into Czech, then another into Polish, then another into Hungarian. The prisoners wail a little more.

 

It has been a trying morning for the director. The guards have been driving him mad, especially during the riot scene: “I can’t seem to get the Roman guards to be aggressive.”

 

An assistant director runs out into the arena and harangues the guards, who are wearing red T-shirts and carrying wooden spears. “Imagine you’re saying to them, ‘F*** you! F*** you!’” The guards start shouting “F*** you!” at the rioting people and brandishing their spears with intent. “Better,” the director booms, “but I don’t want to hear anybody saying f*** out there. I don’t want to get 3,000 letters from mothers telling me their daughters heard the word f***.”

 

Outside, a man whose head is too large for his body — an effect exaggerated by his bouffant-romantic hair — is raising money on a mobile phone, and horses are standing impassively in a tent, contemplating human folly through semicircular openings in the canvas. “Will not be cheesy,” Alex Reinhard says as he takes me to see the horses. Alex works for the large-headed man, whose name is Franz Abraham. What will not be cheesy, according to Alex, is Ben Hur Live. This show — or “monutainment”, as the press handout calls it, rather cheesily in my view — will have its world premiere on September 17 at the O2 Arena, in southeast London. Abraham has been planning this moment for 15 years. “And so,” he tells me, “we are almost through to London, with all seriosity… This can be the most successful show on earth. It can run for 50 years.” His English is great, utterly original; “seriosity” isn’t a word, but it should be.

Certainly the idea of touring such a show comes with it’s dilemma’s the Times digs into but it the sheer will of a single person who has brought this to fruition that amazes me:

What, exactly, this all costs is complicated. By one calculation, it will consume £6m by the time it gets to the O2. But Franz has bought, rather than (as is normal in such ventures) leased, all the gear. He’s also had trouble getting venues to take on any of the risk, so he is financing most of the 18-city tour. He has “no investor, no sponsor, no rich guy”. Every day, he’s on to the banks. Financing seems to be via the venerable theatrical method of a MasterCard and mirrors. Tickets have been selling reasonably for the London shows — 30,000 when we spoke, with expectations of 45,000 — and it has been booked to return in January. Yet, as Franz solemnly acknowledges, everything now depends on the buzz generated by that first night.

It just goes to show what one man’s passion can accomplish.  And in the days of conservative theater choices and unimaginative productions, you can’t help smiling at Abraham’s accomplishment and energy.  Although is certainly might be inspired madness, I am intrigued and rooting for the show’s success.  He also won over the TIMES writer and broke through his wall of cynicism:

Later, sunning myself outside the arena, I watch Abraham having a blazing row with the director, Philip William McKinley. I think he’s losing, but I hope he wins. I like Abraham. He looks like a Napoleonic general painted by Ingres, he speaks English like a comedy German and his show is one of the craziest projects I’ve ever come across. But I think he gets it, this life business. He just goes for it, probably in the name of God.

 

I’d also just seen Pfeifer [Nicki Pfeifer who plays Ben-Hur] driving his chariot, pulled by four magnificent black friesian horses at full speed around the arena. It made me shiver. Was not cheesy.

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