In a lifetime of theatergoing in this city I have never seen anything quite like Apollo 13: Mission Control. It is a truly amazing production.

Bats has been turned into NASA’s command headquarters in  Houston, Texas where we watch on large TV screens the launch of Apollo 13 for its journey to the moon taking place far away in Florida at the Kennedy Space Center.

We sit at consoles and each person has a specific task. If you are not up to speed with some of the terminology the usual theatre programme has been turned into a booklet entitled White Team Manual. As this is interactive theatre you may be called on to assist in some small way or you might even receive a congratulatory phone call from the President of the United States.

After the successful launch all hell breaks loose, lights flash on the consoles, details of the astronauts’ physical condition are shown on the screens as are the details of the lack of oxygen, fuel, and power. Will the astronauts reach the moon or return to earth or perish? We watch the three astronauts coping with their frightful predicament in their capsule.

A rescue plan is put into operation which includes the audience having to solve some (simple) equations – the first I might add that I have done since school. Some personal drama amongst the ground crew has been injected into the script along with some humour and some brief historical background to remind us this is 1970.

It is all held together and driven fiercely forward by the conviction and dynamism of Jason Whyte as the bossy Flight Director and by Michael Whalley, his underling who is trying to make his own mark on the proceedings.

All praise to Kip Chapman who was assisted with the script by Jason Whyte, Michael Whalley, Ryan O’Kane and Rachel Forman, and to [Brad Knewstubb who designed the realistic-looking Mission Control], Robert Larsen who was responsible for the technical systems design as well as the stage management, and to Gareth Ruck for the audio design.

However, I came away from Bats not only marveling how this team put it all together so brilliantly and entertainingly but also realizing yet again what a stupendous feat of human endeavour space travel is. And that is, I expect, what Kip Chapman wanted to express.
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APOLLO 13 is astonishing.

You enter Mission Control in time for the launch of Apollo 13 moon landing, so many hopes pinned on the mission.  You take your place at the consoles.

You have responsibilities, under the intense gaze of Flight Director Gene Kranz (Jason Whyte revelling in the role). The stakes are high and the senior team (led by the bright and ambitious Michael Whallen (played by the bright and convincing Michael Whalley) disagree on the best course of action when, as we know from history, a malfunction puts the astronauts’ lives in peril.

We in Mission Control have tasks, are asked for ideas, and get involved in the drama around us and involving us.  Our astronauts (Ryan O’Kane, Rachel Forman) are live on screen from their capsule so we are very aware of their plight as oxygen and fuel supplies dwindle.

Writer Kip Chapman has based this on thorough research, and constructed it with a clear understanding of how exciting theatre can be.  The technology is astounding, just the consoles are mini-masterpieces, but the human drama is a big part of the show’s success too – it doesn’t fall into the trap of SFX laden Hollywood epics.

You hear from the wife of one of the astronauts and how she copes with the loneliness and fear, and from Gene how hard it is to be the one to tell a family of fatal space mishaps.

If you like your theatre with a proscenium arch and to be a safe distance from the cast, it’s not for you.  This is the ultimate in audience interaction – you collectively hold the fate of the three astronauts in your hands. 

To get the most from this experience, be prepared to go with it. The rewards are rich.

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What a remarkable project this production is, and what a truly fascinating extension of the theatre experience beyond our traditional notions.  As a STAB commission, Apollo 13 is a very successful example of technically innovative and boundary-crossing theatre, and without doubt it’s a fun ride. 

However, despite the scale and scope of what has been achieved it’s hard not to see the equally huge vista of dramatic and creative potential that is not taken up.

It has to said, the physical, aesthetic experience of walking into a totally transformed BATS and sitting down at a personalised control desk complete with switches, buttons, headsets and monitors truly puts one in a state of excitement.  Rarely if ever have I seen an audience so actively engaged – throughout the play one can look around to see people fiddling with their consoles and jotting down notes in their Team Manuals, or leaning behind to share information with their colleagues.  It really is a ‘play’ in the old primary school sense of taking on roles and just imagining.

The set dressing, costumes, lighting and performances are precision-pitched to give a seamless tone, to create a truly virtual, 1970s Mission Control playground in which to immerse the audience.  Sometimes, however, it feels so tightly screwed down that the very playfulness that it seems to encourage doesn’t really have room to take off.  Several people I spoke to afterwards said they felt they were ‘itching for something to do’, and despite there being several direct commands and instructions from Flight Director Gene Kranz (a spiffily waistcoated Jason Whyte), there is room for much, much more interactivity within the structure of the play.

The drama itself is like a dry, bland biscuit – true to the facts, skeletally scripted, and tightly kept in 1970s period.  It’s not a big problem, as the story itself isn’t really the point – it’s more just the point of departure, a place from which to spring into the ‘play’ that will emerge afresh every night.

True to the title of the play, the focus is on Mission Control rather than the astronauts, most of whose dialogue is comic relief.  One lucky punter gets to accompany cast members Ryan O’Kane and impressively moustachioed Rachel Forman into the capsule, and this provides some good laughs.  The main characters, though, are Whyte’s Kranz and the equally reliable Michael Whalley as Michael Whallen.  The rivalry between Kranz’s procedural caution and Whalley’s instinctive decisiveness is the relatively meagre dramatic meat on the play’s structural bones.

However, the audience still has to sit passively through some rather lifeless tracts of dialogue and visuals (Peter Elliott’s Walter Cronkite, for example), whereas if we were issued ongoing tasks to continue with throughout the show we could occupy ourselves very happily with them during the less convincing sequences.

Ultimately, it takes only a short time to figure out that one’s buttons and switches don’t, in fact, do anything; that one’s telephone cannot be used to speak to an audience member on the far side of the room.  Thus, apart from a few lucky punters singled out to search for folders under their desks there is actually little scope for role-play.  While some shy folks might find this a relief, I believe most audience members would respond well to extra stimulus and provocation.

Similarly, from a technical perspective, for the time and effort that has clearly been invested in the production, there is a disappointing lack of ‘wow!’ moments – of theatre magic.  It’s nice to see Technical Systems Designer/Stage Manager/Operator Rob Larsen participating in some dialogue (American accent and all!), but for all the bells and whistles and flashing lights, there’s little in the way of truly special effects.  The astronauts evocation of G-forces and thrust is funny the first time, but gradually pales when we realise that’s all there is to the evocation of space flight.

Still, the production runs very smoothly for something so AV-heavy, and there’s an impressive sense of depth to the lighting/sound-scape.  It’s hard to notice cues or changes because the whole experience is so immersive and authentic.  I found James Milne (Lawrence Arabia)’s compositions slightly out of place, not in a musical sense but a theatrical one.  They seemed to suddenly appear unbidden, as if a soundtrack sprang up while you played make-believe with your playmates in the back yard.

Nonetheless, this is truly an achievement, and clearly a labour of love.  One only has to set foot in the space to feel that, and that single ‘wow!’ is quite enough reason to go along.  While it’s easy to see where the show could – and quite possibly will ,as the season continues – go further in terms of audience participation, there is still a lot of fun to be had with the knobs and dials provided, if you use your imagination.  And if the show can encourage its audiences to do that… then it is a success indeed. 

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