I have seen The End and it's quite, quite brilliant. Babolin Theatre have given us a devised show that is funny, frightening, and almost embarrassingly creative, a brash mixture of grotesque costume, comic accents, eschatological theorising and slick physical theatre. At first it seemed to suffer from the common devised theatre issue of too many ideas for its own good, but after a slightly baffling opening 20 minutes, I was increasingly convinced that what I was watching was a piece of great intelligence and integrity – impressive for something put together by a dozen people.
To try to say what it was actually about would both ruin several surprises and be a bit presumptuous, since I'm not sure I understand it myself. It is clear, however, that a chorus of ‘Undermen’, some kind of apocalyptic cult covered in fat suits and paint, are eagerly awaiting Armageddon with the attitude of a village preparing their Summer Fête. After some opening comic business they all end up telling us the story of Belle, or Jezebelle, the female messiah who must bring about Apocalypse through the betrayal of her fiancée, and then go on a dantesque journey to experience true suffering and thus... by this stage you're on your own; the play doesn't allow us to see through the multiple narrative frames towards any coherent meaning until the final moment.
This is to their credit; in selecting apocalyptic material as a source from which to devise (and they have really done their research), they have hit on a winner on several levels. It is inherently ridiculous, with all the imagery of Revelations turned, worryingly easily, into a fairground metaphor: ‘knock down all Seven Seals to start the Apocalypse!’. It also allows for jarring but convincing tone shifts into abject horror. The awesome choral singing of the Dies Irae has all the sincere terror of the plague-struck Middle Ages handed down to us, pounding out over a typically iron-disciplined physical sequence showing nothing less than the destruction of the earth. But most importantly, like the apocalyptic writings themselves, the piece is open to any number of interpretations. Through most of the run-time I was taken with the idea that the entire Apocalypse might just be the depression of our protagonist; the personal can be apocalyptic for all of us. The ensemble even make a point of crushing representations of happy memories garnered from the audience.
If it isn't a perfect show, only an overabundance of talent and imagination are to blame. It takes on the biggest themes possible, throws everything that theatre can do plus the kitchen sink at them, then burns down the sink in purging fire to the blasts of angelic trumpets. The End Times never looked so good.
