Writer and Director: emma + pj
Is the end of the existence of the human race merely another elaborate magic trick? If it is, are you watching closely?
Welcome to the fractured and eerie world of Ghosts of the Near Future, the newest performance created by UK company emma + pj. Part campfire storytelling, part forensic analysis, part existential mood board, this production made its debut at Edinburgh Fringe last year after extensive support and development, but be sure to catch this show on its UK tour in the coming weeks.
A very intentional investigation into how we can push storytelling in a theatrical world, the two devisers and performers confound the audience with numerous wacky manoeuvres as though lulling it into a slow, quiet sleep while the planet burns. The story is a loose patchwork, but the bulk of the direct narration chronicles a magician making their way through the desert towards Las Vegas where they are to play a show. Nuclear physicists and gasoline-swilling saloons are encountered, but it is the journey along the way that informs this sporadic narrative.
Nuclear dread permeates every aspect of the piece. From the discussion of pj’s pet cat finding a comfortable place to slowly pass on into the next life to the silent karaoke of Elton John’s Rocketman set to projections of atomic detonations, the performance instills a brand of roadside diner apocalypse best accompanied by an ice-cold Coca-Cola.
Matching these evocations of a technologically designed end-of-days, the work regularly utilises on-stage equipment to convey some of its most striking propositions. The employment of existential text projected onto a blank billboard sinks the stomach as it becomes more and more relatable to the average viewer. Pyrotechnics intrude and a certain American delicacy gets sawn in half, but the most striking inclusion is the piece’s use of a microscopic camera.
Hands clad in white magician’s gloves, emma +pj manipulate light and camera in a makeshift, on-stage lab to explode minute images onto the projector screen. Some of the piece’s most striking images derive from this method and prove more than just a transitory practice, but an integral part of the narrative that evokes awe and terror.
Ghosts of the Near Future possesses a bare-bones beauty to it. The set simultaneously creates the world of the desert and Las Vegas in continuity with each other – the glitz of the heights of capitalism and the devastation of an uninhabitable world live in each other’s pockets. The warm orange lighting evokes the heat of the desert while the shimmering sequins of jackets and curtains sparkle.
The sound design by Patch Middleton is a major standout. The lethargic and pulsing, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly guitar twangs roll across the theatre’s landscape, planting this world firmly in a familiar cultural conscience before blowing it wide open.
emma + pj’s exploration of numerous forms, technologies and moods manifest into a robust whole, making Ghosts of the Near Future an essential piece of art that pushes theatrical conventions forward into an uncertain future.
Runs until 28 October 2023 and continues to tour until 1 December
