Travis Preston CalArts takes On-Stage Study of Modern Crime to Sold-Out Showings in China

For all the advances that society has made over the past century, there are quite a few themes that the modern day shares with decades long past. The following concepts are timeless: the hum of the city, the rattle of railway tracks, the leaking of light pollution and the unknown that somehow still lurks within this constant commotion. With these elements as his backdrop, Travis Preston CalArts took the turn-of-the-20th-century French fictional villain Fantômas and parlayed it into modern struggles with urban violence. It may seem like a stretch given the sheer amount of time that has passed between Fantômas’ literary introduction and the current climate of cities and crime, but Travis Preston CalArts pulls it off. He did more than pull it off; the on-stage production of “Fantômas: Revenge of the Image” earned its 2017 world debut at the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, in China’s Zhejiang Province.

As part of the California Institute of the Arts, CalArts Center for New Performance backed this production that earned sold-out showings in October 2017 during the China premiers. It would be safe to assume that the innovative visual presentation merged with an unsettling topic was one of the reasons why “Fantômas: Revenge of the Image” garnered such attention and accolades. According to the CalArts website, the staging took advantage of an “innovative mobile, enclosed audience unit” that was sublimely used to probe “the close relationship between sensation, violence and entertainment in contemporary visual culture.” Travis Preston CalArts is no stranger to such innovative approaches and this production marks the yet another time he has worked with film theorist Tom Gunning.

To better understand the visual presentation, which relies heavily on black backdrops and stark strobes of light, is to see why a character like Fantômas would thrive here. According to Fantômas-Lives.com, a fan-created website exploring the character’s past, present and future in various forms of mass media, our anti-hero is the “Lord of Terror, the Genius of Evil, the arch-criminal.” He is “a figure of unmotivated evil, moral transgression and diabolical perversity.” One can naturally see how this pulp fiction character would fit right in on a darkened stage as a dissection of urban crime plays out. The enthusiastic crowds that met Travis Preston CalArts wanted to know more about the concepts and see something unique. For those not familiar with Preston’s works, this production remains a great starting point following the world debut in China.