“IF you’re ever going to be on time for a show, make this the one,” advises SUPA Productions’ director, Ron Dowd, as he puts the finishing touches to his bigger-than-Ben Hur production of Jeff Wayne’s musical version of “The War Of The Worlds.”
Well you shouldn’t be late anyway, but if you are this time, you’ll miss film footage on the huge upstage screen showing the invasion by the Martians.
That invasion was so scary in old movie versions that it had children hiding under their seats, and of course when the original novel by HG Wells was broadcast on American radio by Orson Welles, everyone thought it was real.
In this case, there is no mistaking that it’s a theatre production, but Dowd says, “I’ve never done anything like the show before,” as he finds himself taking second place to the technology and the music.
It’s no exaggeration to liken lighting whizkid Chris Neal to a pig in mud as he holds sway over the computer-generated imagery hired from the London production and massive backstage server that dictates to the cast.
Neal and the computer are masters of the rock band, the classical orchestra, the cast and the narrator, (called “The Journalist”) played by Joseph McGrail-Bateup.
McGrail-Bateup says the show is “way bigger than we thought” and surely the biggest thing SUPA has done, explaining the extra terrestrial bombardment of ads you’ve been hearing on commercial radio to make sure that they recoup their expenditure.
He agrees with Dowd that it is a super technical show, where every action, every note and every word must synchronise perfectly with the film.
I saw a rehearsal today, where touching romantic songs intertwined with this footage and the spectacular space music created by Wayne to match the cosmological subject matter.
What I saw and heard was sensational.
I won’t be missing it, but I’ll be careful to find a good parking spot early on the ANU campus—you should do the same.
“War of the Worlds,” at the ANU Arts Centre, October 12 to 27, bookings to 6257 1950.
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