![_M83: 100th Show at Stubbs [Show Photos]](http://austinist.com/assets_c/2012/05/M83 Austinist-1-thumb-250x250-715412.jpg)
![_Spiritualized Transcend Emo's East [Show Photos and Review]](http://austinist.com/assets_c/2012/05/Flagged - 14-thumb-250x250-715547.jpg)
Review: Apocalypse! at Salvage Vanguard Theater
A parody ideally strikes a balance between poking fun of its subject matter and holding true to the tenets of the genre it's deconstructing. Apocalypse!, Gnap! Theater Project's current main stage show, does a good job in that regard. Apocalypse! is a completely improvised play in the style of the post-apocalyptic genre—think The Road Warrior, The Road, and 28 Days Later. Austinist got a chance to take in the show's performance on Saturday, April 3rd. Overall, the show was impressive and a whole lot of fun. Despite a few small complaints from that night, Apocalypse! is highly recommended.
While waiting for the show to begin, one can't help but notice the rather large Austin City Limit sign hanging on the back wall, with the population number crossed out and the word 'Dead' spray-painted next to it. When the show opened, the cast lined up and one cast member—the host and narrator of the show—engaged the audience. The audience was asked for two suggestions: a processed food one couldn't live without and a recent news item (in this case tapioca pearls and Somalian pirates). One member of the audience was selected to spin the Apocalypse! wheel and as it spun the cast chanted "End the world!" The wheel landed on 'Wildcard' that night, passing up 'Aliens', 'Zombies', 'Nukes' and other possibilities. The audience member thus had the opportunity to use their imagination, offered 'Deadly Comet' and the show begun in earnest.
The structure of the show was such that an opening, much like what happens in the credit sequence of post-apocalyptic films, had the cast members delivering small broken up television news bits depicting the world as the comet approached and devastated civilization. After the opening, a story unfolded in a world where hardly any useful plants grew and deadly mutant creatures ran amok. A struggle emerged between a group of survivors attempting to return normalcy to the Earth and a villain hell-bent on keeping things the way they had become.
The show played on several conventions of the genre—Like "Ford Lincoln Mercury" from The Postman and "Aunty Entity" from Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome, the main characters were named Stallion, Tree-Hugger, Apocalyptica, Pepsi, Mr. One and Graptor Master. Another standard for the genre is excessive violence and killing (as if the world hasn't seen enough of it suffering through the apocalypse) and Apocalypse! did not disappoint on this front either, as dozens of small characters and even main characters were killed over the course of the show in the name of satire. And, of course, the costumes followed the same leather/spandex/ridiculous style conventions of the genre's standard-bearers.
The ending of the show we caught resulted in both the use of slightly groan worthy deus ex machina and an amazing spontaneous connection being made between the narrator's character and the story itself. The only other possible complaints to be made from the night in question were a bit of chaos near the climax of the show, when an epic battle got a bit out of control, and the fact that one was left wondering if the suggestion "Somalian pirates" was supposed to influence the show more than it seemingly had.
Apocalypse! didn't leave us walking out of Salvage Vanguard Theater in philosophical deep thought about the end of the world, but it did leave us wearing big smiles in amazement of the whimsical, but engrossing, story created on the spot.
Apocalypse! is running Friday and Saturday nights at 8:00 pm at Salvage Vanguard Theater through April 17, 2010.
