Are you familiar with the urban legend of The Wizard of Oz + Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon?
Dateline: 2017. Boise Treefort Festival (5 days of amazing, same format as SxSW). Final nite of the fest, Sunday nite. Boise Contemporary Theatre. I saw a play so profound, so outrageously ambitious, I have no interest in seeing a play again, ever. It was called 'there are Chinese tunnels under Boise.'
But back to Floyd, Oz, and the urban legend. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, swear it's true. This is a global phenomenon. The gist is that the two are perfectly synchronized. If you watch the flick on mute, listening to the record at the same time, they're in sync. I'm not making this up. Do a search on it and you'll also be pulled into the rabbit hole. Anyhoots. That's the background of this blog, and this play.
Act 1 of 2 begins in a basement of the stoner Floyd fan. His 3 friends arrive: 2 blokes & a bird. He argues with his friends at length of the validity of the two being in sync. Another brings up the urban legend of the play's title: that there are 'Chinese' tunnels under Boise (tunnels built by the Chinese, way back in the day). Ergo, there are two arguments occurring, both involving urban legends; one local one global. 2 of the fellas get into an actual fistfight. The 4 all agree to go out into the night and go into the tunnels, which they do. actually, they first head offstage, all 4 with linked elbows, literally skipping offstage. Sound familiar?
Whilst in the tunnels, they get locked in, water floods in, making them twirl round & round, around the stage, all of them, spinning in circles as they go, arms flailing. They escape, make it back, and two of them, male & female, go to his place to find towels. There, behind a thin backlit curtain, so they're only in silhouette, he chokes her with his belt then rapes her. It's seriously graphic, even behind the curtain. She staggers out the door and offstage.
Intermission. Act 1 took a full hour. Yikes!
Act 2 begins with the four sitting in the audience, chatting with us, as they trickle down to the stage. Then, wait for it, Dark Side of the Moon begins playing over the PA. Then, Act 1 resumes, exactly, with all the characters talking silently. Everything, is repeated, precisely. The arguing. The fight. Breaking into the tunnels. Being swept away in a current (the trippy synth song). The rape (the opera singer). And every single second of this is perfectly in sync with the record.
Dig, if you will, the complexity of this. The script, dialogue, story, pacing, choreography etc. in pulling this off.
When the music started at Act 2, within seconds I knew what they were attempting, turned to my friend and said 'there's no freaking way they can pull this off.' So dig how meta all this is: Act 1 is arguing about the Wizard of Oz urban legend. Act 2 is a perfect repeat, set to the music, set to the actual urban legend.
Are you still with me here? Are you picturing this in your mind?
Absolutely brilliant.