I grew up with space travel and man landing on the moon and I hoped I was about to relive a little of that excitement and fascination with Apollo 13: Mission Control being performed by Hackman from New Zealand as part of the World Theatre Festival at the Brisbane Powerhouse Theatre.
The show started in the foyer with the entrance of the famous American newsman Walter Cronkite accompanied by an astronaut in a space suit to announce that one of the astronauts was unable to go on the flight and an audience member chosen to take their place. The audience lined up to form a path for the astronauts to walk along to enter the space shuttle. The audience then entered the theatre while Bruce Springsteen sang Born in the USA. Despite the Apollo 13 event preceding the song by a number of years it did set the tone for the show. The theatre was set like a replica of 1970's mission control room at NASA, retro computer consoles were lined up in rows for audiences members to sit at. The set also consisted of two large video screens, a large blackboard and press gallery seats on each side for audience members who wished to view the action quietly.
Each computer console was slightly different, some had small video screens, some had headphones, some had old fashion phones with the round dial, some just had lots of switches and they all had lots of flashing lights which would indicate what was happening at a given time. Each console was labeled with a job description, mine was press gallery along with three others beside me. We were encouraged to introduce ourselves to the other people sitting in our row. The proceedings were led by a couple of NASA's ground staff, they were get up and go young guys with loud American accents. The action was just about non stop with audience members having varies tasks to perform, video images of the rocket ship blast off shaking the whole theatre, regular video news reports from Walter Cronkite, danger alerts with loud sirens and flashing lights interspersed with the occasional chit chat and video footage of the astronaut's wife expressing hope for her husband's safe return.
All the performers worked well to bring a jam-packed show together that engages and entertains. The set design was excellent, especially the computer consoles that appeared to really work. Kip Chapman and Brad Knewstubb have created a unique show that appeals to a wide range of age groups. At the performance I attended most of the audience were school students who's youthful eagerness helped to make the performance just that little more enjoyable. It is a show that is a great history lesson on 1970's technology especially for the tech savvy kids of today.
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