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Its a maximalist comedy, largely in rhyming verse, that asks whether art can redeem our fallen world.
But its also a play about dicks.
The bodies, which are suggestive cloth dummies rather than realistic representations, are male.
In some casesverymale, maybe eventoomale.
The bodies [made in] Newburgh were more appropriate, Loquasto said.
There was a tendency in Brooklyn for them to get too big.
As I kept saying, maybe its something in the water?
InGary, the bodies arent just the major props; they also help set the tone of the show.
As Loquasto put it, the play cant simply be gruesome and off-putting.
The results are, essentially, big dolls.
Theyre manageable in terms of the requirements of the script, but theyaredummies.
That last part was Lanes idea, and making it work was lower-fi than you might assume.
Really silly theater devices, Loquasto says.
The peeing equipment is like a turkey baster.
He puts his hand inside the side of the body and squeezes the tube.
He can control it, which is ideal.
For director George C. Wolfe, all this clowning around with cloth members has a purpose.
Hopefully its cheap humor used smartly, not cheap humor used cheaply, he said.
Figuring out how to stage that took more than a little invention.
They needed real dancers.
We had an hour left of the audition, so we turned it into rehearsal, he said.
The goal was for the reanimated Romans to look as if they just woke up from being dead.
You wouldnt be able to move that well.
Everythings bracketed thats the movement vocabulary.
For that, Wolfe drew inspiration from Ray Harryhausens stop-motion effects in the filmJason and the Argonauts.
Theres this scene where the skeletons pop up out of the ground and they attack Jason, Wolfe said.
I wanted to play around with that and then add the penis equation into it.
Once it became clear thatGaryrequired real dancers wearing fake penises, Loquasto turned to specialty prop designer Craig Grigg.
According to Grigg, the design bid included a requirement that their privates dance like windshield wipers.
Theyre gray and uncut, because theyre Roman, and theyre dead.
Theyre smooth and nondescript, and they needed to be substantial but not exciting.
They also needed to be remote-controlled, and light enough that the dancers could carry them.
When it was flaccid, it was fine.
It just had a little performance anxiety.
The penises as built are each a stack of universal joints.
The motors are spinning up to 1,000 rpm to make the penises rise and sway.
As always, the stage is less forgiving than real life.
That calibration happens in the tip, Grigg said.
The tip is the most sensitive part of the penis puppet.
The pace is not automated, requiring her to work in time to Danny Elfmans score.
We all said, Then you wont have any tension for the water to come out.)
So whats it like to dance with a robot penis sitting on top of your actual penis?
According to Bouie, during the show itself, the adrenaline is pumping and he doesnt feel it.
Youre like, Okay, somethings going on down there.
