Originally published in The Baum Bugle, vol. 62, no. 3 (Winter 2018), pgs. 46—47
Citations
Chicago 17th ed.:
Campbell, Nick. Review of The Wizard of Oz, by Pandemonium Performance, Baum Bugle 62, no. 3 (2018): 46–47.
MLA 9th ed.:
Campbell, Nick. Review of The Wizard of Oz, by Pandemonium Performance, The Baum Bugle, vol. 62, no. 3, 2018, pp. 46–47.
(Note: typographical errors have been left in place to accurately reflect the printed version.)
The Wizard of Oz
July 11-29, 2018
Abney Park Cemetery, London, England
This was a summer production from Pandemonium Performance, a company specializing in dark readings of otherwise familiar texts. In 2017, they found success in an open-air performance of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, presenting the likes of “Hansel and Gretel” and “Godfather Death” among the mossed-over graves and funereal monuments of Abney Park cemetery in North London.
For 2018’s Wizard, they returned to the cemetery. Stepping through the gates was itself a dramatic experience for the audience. Outside was London at its most urban: betting shops, takeaways, buses, and pubs. Step between the faux-Egyptian portals, though, and the audience was immediately elsewhere: a hushed, half-wild space with a paved path leading into the trees.
A crowd of parents and children were waiting expectantly in the muggy July heat for the story to begin. After a few safety instructions, we were led down the path to where two sets of Dorothys waited; two performances of the show were to run concurrently, and after the cyclone struck Aunt Em and Uncle Henry’s farm, two audiences each followed “their” Dorothy on her adventure.
It felt initially as though such a thing would be impossible: surely we’d be running into, or at least overhearing, the other group? Soon it became clear this was a bigger space than it looked: thirty-one hectares, in fact. The site was conceived in 1863 as both cemetery and arboretum, originally planted with over two thousand tree and plant specimens. It felt like a place that demanded exploration but in which one might easily be lost, and it made for an wild, uncanny, and ancient-seeming Oz. Later, the gothic chapel loomed out of the trees, cast in the role of Witch’s castle, and made a powerful impression.
Not that this was a reverential production: quite the opposite. It felt as though Pandemonium were drawing on all the irreverent traditions of British popular theatre. At one point, amid a barrage of shrieks, the Wicked Witch of the West turned to us and asked, “Too much?” “No,” she reassured herself, “it’s never too much…” Glinda, with eye-patch and umbrella to match the Denslow-esque Wicked Witch, was feverishly excited by Dorothy’s arrival: “You are quite the witch-killing machine!” And where else would you get a joke about Britain’s present, strained relationship with the European Union (“Either you must explain Brexit—or kill the Wicked Witch of the West!”). It was generally not so much an authentic Baumian Oz as an acerbic, European reaction to the MGM adaptation: more than once, when a “merry song and dance” was proposed, Dorothy vetoed it in severe terms, much to the audience’s delight. Costume was distinctly un-Hollywood, with the Scarecrow almost disconcerting in what looked like a ripped and dirty straitjacket, while Dorothy wore overalls and a serious expression throughout.
Other modifications offered food for thought. The Guardian of the Gates was revealed to be in the Wicked Witch’s employ—citing the high cost of Emerald City living as her motivation—and this led naturally to the Wizard’s own duplicity. Didn’t the travellers consider, the Guardian asked, why he sent them to do what he could not? The implication was rather dark, and indeed the Wizard’s dubious nature was one strand in the story treated seriously. “He was a con artist,” Dorothy informed Glinda bitterly, “[and] led us all astray.” But Glinda, too, was revealed to have her manipulative side, having kept the power of the silver shoes a secret to give the “witch-slayer extraordinaire” a chance to “take out” not one witch but two. The biggest and most effective rewrite concerned Kansas: in the opening scene, Dorothy was an oppressed servant of her uncaring aunt and uncle, but she returned to them empowered by her experiences in Oz. For their part, her relatives had come to regret their cruelty. Rather than a cosy homecoming, the performance ended in a new situation charged with drama.
Promenade theatre feels particularly suited to The Wizard of Oz, emphasising the wildness and pioneering spirit of Dorothy’s journey. Pandemonium Performance’s use of the form immersed us in a peculiarly British and revisionist version of Oz, with a genuine sense of progression for its central character. It’s a unique and unrepeatable experience, but the approach would suit productions in varying locales, each bringing their own particular atmosphere and attitude to a story we know well. I hope they are done with the same confidence and brio of Pandemonium Performance.
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