The Sound of Bombogenesis

Christopher Giles

319w 

April 6 2019

The Sound of Bombogenesis

There are few pieces of art, be they film, music, visual art, or theatre that as ubiquitous as The Sound of Music. These works become the fabric of our world and propel forward the idea that art does not only imitate life but as Oscar Wilde famously put it, “life imitates art”. The Sound of Musicis one such work of art. This is why we know it so well. It’s why many love it so dearly and it’s creating an adaptation, especially an adaptation as experimental as Bombogenesis is so tempting and risky. It becomes challenging to view the adaption as a standalone work. Fortunately, Bombogenesisdoesn’t require us to view it as a stand-alone work of art. It is a play on the cultural legacy of the film rather than a re-interpretation of the story. Furthermore, it’s good. It’s very good. Through both music and imagery, Bombogenesisuses The Sound of Musicas a launch point for a piece that brings the material forward in time and makes it relevant to the world we live in today. This is, however, a tricky feet because the material of the original released in 1965 is truly iconic. The scenes are as famous as any, and those who have not seen the movie still know the music.

It is impossible to talk about the meaning of these pieces with first contrasting the social and political climates in which they were created. Sound of Music was released in the 1960s and set to take place just prior to the Second World War. This places the characters in a very different setting from the society we live in today. This is most apparent in the film portrayal of gender roles. The Sound of Music is piece drenched in the ideals of post-war America. Anne McLeer describes the social ideals of the time. “The 1950s domestic ideal built up the traditional family as a mainstay of patriotism. If the correct parental power structure was observed, the family should produce girls and boys whose correct displays of femininity and masculinity indicated their status as ideal American children. In the ideology of domestic containment”[1]. This is an accurate depiction of the setting in movie. Bombogenesis does not confront us with a social setting of it’s own but I feel that we cannot analyze its content without this context.

Bombogenesisis certainly a work of contemporary art. The sounds and sights all aim to distinguish themselves from the aesthetics of the The Sound of Music.In a work, Bombogenesisis surreal. Where The Sound of Music seeks to provide comfort and familiarity, Bombogenesisprovides intrigue and sensory confusion. The primary distinction is how Bombogenesisseeks to be unfamiliar. Everything is strange. Everything is processed and unsettling.  The music in The Sound of Music is perhaps an unrealistic view of the world meant to be safe for the power structure of the day. The sounds of Bombogenesis, on the other hand, offer no such reinforcement. 

The sounds are processed, dark, and often mesmerising. The sonic landscape is open to interpretation but they are clearly meant to be unfamiliar. The children of The Sound of Music are innocent and represent the purity of innocence. The children of Bombogenesis offer a darker aesthetic. The voices are pitch-shifted to sinister effect and the resulting disturbance forces us to reflect on the children of The Sound of Music, to re-examine assumptions that where once taken for granted. The music is also darker, less joyful, and often sarcastic. The Sound of Music sounds innocent and sweet and tells the story of a more innocent time. Referring to Something New Raymond Knapp describes the values at play when he says: “the song is about redemption-referring perhaps to the real- life Maria's own difficult childhood and her youthful contempt for religion-it is also about the relationship between past and present, an assertion of necessary continuity” [2]The music itself matches the production perfectly and adds to the overall experience by taking us deeper into this bizarre world we are exploring. It achieves a perfect mix as it references the original but brings us something new. Dissonance and tension are used to great effect. The music also does a fantastic job of supporting the unique visual landscape presented to us. As the dark colours, the shapes and the movement all seem to join forces and create the same world, creating a believable and very immersive experience for the audience.

The visuals, for their part, also play a key role in creating this world. The performers where taken out onto the stage on movable platforms. This gave the performance a few distinct qualities. Firstly, the performers were always in motion. Secondly, their time on stage was mostly in short burst rather than long sustained performances. Lastly, the visual effect of seeing the performers movements interact with the movements of the platforms on which they stood was interesting and unique. The result was a play delivered in a series of metaphorical snapshots rather than a continuous narrative. This was especially effective in the more fast-paced sections of the performance.  Furthermore, the visuals are key in creating to the disorientation that the viewer experiences. The disorientation isn’t confusing however. It is masterful in that it produces the opposite effect that one experiences watching The Sound of Music. There is however a parallel. The Sound of Music is, in a word, predictable. It is exactly what you would expect from a movie of its era. Watching in 2019, however, produces it’s own form of confusion. I found myself asking whether the audiences seeing this in the nineteen sixties felt the same. In a peculiar way, Bombogenesis is no more bizarre. It, however, does not seek to engage in a comforting fantasy. Instead, it seeks to engage the senses and forces us to decipher its meaning. Furthermore, for a theatre production, Bombogenesisis vibrant and colourful. It manages to overwhelm us in a way that typically is reserved for fixed media such as film. The choreography is smart and the performers commit to it. The lasting impression is not hostile towards to movie that inspired but rather open ended and left to our interpretation. The issues aren’t expressed in an explicit way but implied in a way that makes us think.

When a cultural icon such as The Sound of Music is remade in such a radical manner, it is often difficult compare the outcomes. The Sound of Musicwas the musical masterpiece of the nineteen sixties. Today, it looks very much like it is from that era. It is loaded with cultural assumptions and biases that seem greatly out-dated. It would be easy to take on these issues with anger and indignation but the makers of Bombogenesisare more clever and creative than that. Because of that, the play succeeds in way that is not always typical of contemporary art. It is, in addition to everything else I have mentioned, an entertaining experience.

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[1]McLeer, Anne. "Practical Perfection? The Nanny Negotiates Gender, Class, and Family Contradictions In1960s Popular Culture." NWSA Journal 14, no. 2 (2002): 80-101. Accessed April 4, 2019. Jstor. Keyword: The Sound of Music.

[2]Knapp, Raymond. "History, The Sound of Music, and Us." American Music 22, no. 1 (2004): 133-44. Accessed April 6, 2019. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3592972.