Bread and Circuses
Tête à Tête Opera Festival 2020 available online
Reviewed – 25th September 2020
★★½
“It risks spiraling out of control with so many disparate elements”
Bread and Circuses is part of a socially distanced live performance series at the Cockpit Theatre brought together by the Tête á Tête Opera Festival. But if you missed the September 20th performance in house, or the September 24th interactive broadcast online, don’t worry. A recording of the interactive broadcast is available, also online, for 28 days.
Bread and Circuses is many things. Perhaps too many. Described as “an opera in two acts and a wrestling show”, this creation (concept by Mark Johnson, with story by Charles Ogilvie, and music by Liam Wade) is much more than that simple description. It’s also an opera with a video game played in real time, a wannabe revenge drama, a history play, and a musical. The title Bread and Circuses is apt, however. It’s a reference to the Roman gladiatorial games, which were often staged as shallow entertainments to distract the masses. Johnson, Ogilvie and Wade’s Bread and Circuses takes its inspiration from a modern equivalent—World Wide Wrestling. In particular, the occasion during the 2007 Wrestlemania, when a certain Donald John Trump won a bet with WWW owner Vince McMahon. This is the moment, allegedly, where Trump first realized the power of the crowd’s roar of approval as he shaved McMahon’s head live on stage. But the origin story of Bread and Circuses is not the problem. The problem is trying to knit these elements together into a coherent performance piece.
A wrestling event starring Trump is an unusual origin story for any drama, let alone an opera. But we are definitely in “truth is stranger than fiction” territory these days, so “unusual” is somehow appropriate. It’s also difficult to tell what an opera in two acts might look like, when we can only sample three excerpts in thirty minutes. COVID-19 restrictions mean that there are a maximum of two performers on stage, with a pianist. There is a screen above the performers to add context. The story seems to be about wrestling rivalries on and off the stage. Also a murder that female wrestler Shawnee feels she has to avenge. It’s about values, strangely enough. But for unclear reasons, the creators of Bread and Circuses decided that a 90s style video game of wrestlers, complete with electronic sound effects, was the way to add context. Don’t get me wrong. It’s beautifully and authentically designed (congratulations to Dev Bye-a-Jee and his talented team at Ravensbourne University). The video game device does allow for the compression of characterization and plot points into some pithy subtitles flashing above the wrestlers. But in opera, pixels are a poor substitute for singers on stage.
It’s possible to see Bread and Circuses becoming a layered, even subtle, work of irony in its final version. One could also see it as a leveller in the culture wars struggle—a “low art” “high art” mashup. Or, if you prefer, low blows alongside high notes. But it’s asking a lot of an audience to get on board with the version presented at the Cockpit Theatre on September 20th 2020. And when the performers morph from what sounds suspiciously like musical theatre to opera (and soprano Camilla Kerslake shines as female wrestler Shawnee) it’s not unfair to wonder where we’re going to end up. I get that Bread and Circuses is a satire—and there was more than a bit in the excerpts, of John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, musically speaking. But this work hasn’t yet found its centre. It risks spiraling out of control with so many disparate elements.
Reviewed by Dominica Plummer
Photography by Claire Shovelton
Bread and Circuses
Tête à Tête Opera Festival 2020 available online
Previously reviewed by Dominica:
Jason Kravits – Off The Top | ★★★★★ | Live At Zédel | January 2020
Us Two | ★★★ | The Space | January 2020
Crybabies: Danger Brigade | ★★★ | The Vaults | March 2020
Fireworks | ★★★ | The Vaults | March 2020
Luna | ★★ | The Vaults | March 2020
Our Man In Havana | ★★★★ | The Vaults | March 2020
Revisor | ★★★★★ | Sadler’s Wells Theatre | March 2020
Sky In The Pie | ★★★ | The Vaults | March 2020
The Revenger’s Tragedy (La Tragedia Del Vendicatore) | ★★★★★ | Barbican | March 2020
The Tempest | ★★★★ | Jermyn Street Theatre | March 2020
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