Lost Babylon .


Friday 3rd March


On the 3rd of March, I had the privilege of being part of the audience of Takeshi Kawamura’s “The Lost Babylon”. I had read a review printed in the Adelaide Advertiser describing the performance as “depicting a theme park where idle well-off youth play virtual killing games. Disenfranchised youth are employed to play the targets of these wealthy game players. Kawamura was inspired to write the play by observing society’s increasing trouble discerning between reality and fantasy.”

I was excited about being one of the first people to view this performance. As I was helping out ushering at this session, I was able to view the pre-performance arrangements, with people rushing around putting the finishing touches to the auditorium. The audience entered with looks of curiosity and anticipation on their faces. The start had been delayed by about half an hour so they were keen for the performance to begin.

I felt the excitement rise in me as the stage was filled with smoke, lit orange by light coming from grills on the floor. The unfortunate ‘targets’ were standing over these grills, lit from below, generating an eerie atmosphere. The actors where conversing with a video ‘big boss’ character displayed across the back wall, interviewing them about their job. He was wearing an eye patch and surrounded by cigar/cigarette smoke, creating a very ‘cloak and dagger’ feel to the scene. The use of the video, with occasional distorted transmission, made the character seem ‘untouchable’ with a sense of ‘power-over’. I felt very sorry and sad for their desperate situations – poor, homeless, older, no family, illegal immigrants, alone. At the time I noted that they represented a group of people that had been let down, dismissed, prejudiced against, rejected by society.

The scene changed to a screenwriter and an action movie director who were working on a movie about the theme park. These characters had previously been in a relationship and throughout the performance, we are shown aspects of this relationship and traumas suffered by the screenwriter. It becomes apparent that due to her relationship with the director, she had been assaulted, but ‘invented’ a sister to project her suffering onto rather than dealing with it herself. Through this we are exposed to her sister’s ‘ghost’. I was initially unaware that this character was not real as she is seen her through the screenwriter’s eyes. As I became aware that she wasn’t real, it generated a feeling of realisation with bits of the puzzle started to fall into place. My mind was racing ahead, making assumptions about what was happening, and what had happened in the past, based on this new information. I found it a very powerful moment as things became clearer.

The director had been kept in the dark somewhat about the nature of the theme park and the movie they were going to make. He asked if it was going to be a prehistoric theme park, and is told he is close. Was this suggesting a sense of ‘uncivilised’? Is this why the play is called ‘The Lost Babylon’ as Babylon was considered the epitome of ‘civilised’?

Certainly the wealthy clients were frantic in their lust for killing, taking out their revenge on society and anyone they could blame for anything bad that had happened in their lives. Their hunger progressed the more they killed, wanting more realistic ‘deaths’, automatic weapons and hostages, glorifying their kills. All the while they were justifying their actions as ‘it’s okay because it’s only a game’. In the real world, they are ‘good citizens’. They do however feel there is a need to be prepared, ‘just in case’ they need these killing skills in the real world.

Upon discovering that they were acquainted with one of the ‘targets’, one of the clients begins to generate a class distinction between himself and the less fortunate, rejecting his peers plea’s to let the target become one of them. At this point, the people playing the targets begin to fight back, robbed of their rights, sick of the abuse, the breaking of rules and the attempts to ‘put them in their place’. Gone is their compassion also, with one of them tricking a client into releasing him, then turning on her, telling her how stupid she was for freeing him. All bets are off, everyone is running scared. Now there are real bullets out there and no-one can distinguish them from the blanks. There was off screen action involving more violence. The characters on stage viewed it via security cameras, but didn’t know where the images were coming from and were distressed at being unable to rescue those being harmed. This medium created a sense of being inside a large compound, and I felt the characters helplessness and fear.

They blame their exposure to violent movies. They have been taught through this medium how to exist on the streets, they aren’t prepared to take responsibility, they say society has forced them to defend themselves.

I was fascinated by one scene where the director and screenwriter were arguing about the script. The screenwriter was developing the action by typing the dialogue into a computer. To the left of the stage we saw a convicted killer discussing with his analyst why he killed, acting out what the screenwriter was writing as she was typing. The screenwriter wanted the killer to understand it was his exposure to violent movies, the director wanted him to blame his mother for leaving his father. The director jumped in and typed it the way he wanted it to happen and the actors acted out his version, the two writers now swapping back and forth changing how the actors perform. I loved how the actors changed from one script to the other, halting as the writers swapped places. It was a fantastic effect, brilliant!

However, the final scene was the most intriguing part of the performance. I came out confused. Why did the analyst tell the killer, now dressed in army greens, that he could choose any weapon he wanted, it was okay?

I discussed this with one of my peers, who also attended the performance, for most of the afternoon, trying to find an interpretation that would fit the original idea that society was having trouble discerning between fantasy and reality, right and wrong. The message I have taken from the last scene is that society is appalled by the violent actions of street gangs yet says it’s okay in movies because it’s ‘not real’. So where does the violence of war fit in with our sense of right and wrong? How does it now become okay to ‘shoot to kill’ in the real world if it happens within a war zone?

Post Script:

Wow, what a moving performance. I was buzzing for days, thinking about it, analysing what I had seen. Changing my views and ideas about how I had originally interpreted aspects of the play. Some I spoke to didn’t like it. Others ‘didn’t get it’. How do I know if I ‘got it’? I do know I was moved by the experience, and I think everyone takes something different away from every performance. Surely your life experiences will determine how you react to something as confronting as this.