The Mothman Cometh bills itself as a dark, comedic, experimental show. The audience certainly found it funny, but there was very little ‘darkness’ or fear. This is more of a comic skit than a theatre performance, and the only thing to fear is all the audience participation. Although we were warned about the darkness and how we might find that disturbing, the effect was somewhat lost due to the emergency lighting behind us. Richie Schiraldi, who plays the Mothman, did refer to this and made it part of a gag.
It all starts with a cheesy American horror movie voiceover before Schiraldi appears wearing red LED goggles. They create a very effective image and draw the eye. It is amazing how much you can infer about a character’s feelings just from the way those red eyes move, even when you can only vaguely glimpse a body in black. Whisper Theatre, who produced this show, state they are influenced by Lecoq-based physical theatre and dance, but in this show it mainly involved lots of wing flapping and leaping about.
The audience seemed delighted by all the tongue-in-cheek references and enthusiastically whooped and cheered throughout The Mothman Cometh. Schiraldi knows how to work a crowd and, apart from constantly repeating “Yes” in a certain drawn-out manner, kept everyone engaged. There was indeed lots of audience participation, including a game show, dancing, and even a point where Mothman was carried around by audience members. With lots of enthusiastic volunteers wanting to get up on stage, all inhibitions were abandoned. A large cohort of Transatlantic visitors may have helped carry everyone along.
But I found it all rather tiresome, as though I’d stumbled into a private joke and couldn’t quite get the hang of it. There was something about lack of sleep and a void that the Mothman had entered, and these gave them frequent shudders where they’d suddenly burst into song and the audience would eagerly join in. I’m not sure why they suddenly started singing, and I didn’t know most of the songs anyway. However, the audience seemed quite happy to sing along and reluctant to stop. The show ended with some cod psychology about facing your fears and making connections, but that all felt tacked on to validate the production.
You may enjoy The Mothman Cometh if you like American-style humour that involves lots of hollering and cheering, and having a figure in a black moth suit make brash, ironic references constantly. I didn’t, but maybe I’m just not the target audience. On the other hand, everyone around me seemed to love it.
