“The Elementary Spacetime Show”: A Reason to Keep Living
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Mental health is a subject that is so often talked about in media, but in recent years it seems where the subject tends to fail with audiences, particularly in authenticity and proper storytelling is in theatre.
Ʒ˸ University’s production of “The Elementary Spacetime Show” is a show that challenges the topic in a way no other Broadway show I’ve seen has done. Trying to break through in a time that so many feel so strongly about.
“The Elementary Spacetime Show” is a musical about a young woman named Alameda, who attempts suicide and finds herself in a cosmic vaudevillian gameshow that she has to win in order to die, all while finding the need for recovery through each challenge.
With a story this unique and dark, it was certainly going to be a challenge to figure out how this story would work for audiences. The show is blunt, dark and at times, disturbing.
The show will put you in moments of pure despair and wrap up in a giant blanket, wanting to hide, only to be then picked up and out of the chrysalis. It’ll then cause you to break out to fly again in happy thoughts and relief, going through an experience that makes you appreciate life.
Co-author and co-music director of the show César Alvarez emphasizes this point.
“One of the most dangerous things about suicidality, is the stigma around it,” Alvarez said. “So many people have these feelings and there’s a terror around how to confront them or how to share them, and the show sort of just absolutely blows that apart… by the time that you’re done seeing the show, you’ve been so immersed in such a wild, raucous, multi-dimension conversation around this topic, that it feels liberating.”
This production and the team also made it a point to make sure that the cast is coming into a safe and mentally supportive environment, according to Andrea Avilés, a freshman BFA musical theatre major, who plays Razmush in the show.
“Our creative team has been so wonderful,” Avilés said. “At the beginning of rehearsals we have our access check-in, where we go around and ask if we have any mental blocks and how we can keep ourselves physically well.”
She also discussed how the creative team brought in two mental health experts to come in every Monday during the process to discuss the students’ mental health and how each is feeling.
As a student myself and a person who’s been always fascinated and engaged in the art of theatre, it was truly fascinating to see a musical based around a topic that you would never find anywhere else.
Actors dressed like characters you’d normally find out of Tim Burton film, discussing topics you would normally hear in often in coming of age literature, is a big swing to take for a group of college theatre students. But because of the writing by co-authors Alvarez and Emily Orling, it proves to be such a memorable show both allowing an audience member to experience the pain one feeling with suicidality.
Not only this but the costumes and scenic design, courtesy of Orling, go hand in hand with the “freak-show” mentality of this production, showing how fantastical the story and characters are while still allowing them to tie into the messaging and themes of this show so wonderfully.
However, even with this show’s bleak themes, it still reminds people that with a conversation, they have the choice to either give up or to keep going on the journey.
It is quite surreal for an audience to be transported to another field of vision and begin to experience life before their eyes and the choices they made and the words people said around them.
Watching this show, you can go from laughing at the dark jokes one character says to sobbing your eyes out as another character makes you question the weight and guilt one would feel putting a tragedy on a family member.
It’s truly exceptional to see why a production like “The Elementary Spacetime Show” is important to see and experience, especially in the times that we live in. This is not just a show about suicidality, or what it means to die. By the end, “The Elementary Spacetime Show” shows that it is a musical about the importance to keep on living.