Clouds of sand rise from the track as the five steel chariots thunder past, each rider whipping his four horses on as they vie for advantage. Thousands of spectators roar, already roused to excitement by displays of wild animals, orgies, gladiator fights, even a simulated naval battle. Charioteers fall by the wayside in the battle for supremacy, one dragged along the track by his heedless team for an agonizing stretch. Eventually a victor crosses the finish line to cries of jubilation.
This scene didn’t take place in ancient Rome 2,000 years ago, but in London last week. It was the premiere of “Ben Hur Live,” a spectacular new production of the famous story, mounted on a scale almost unprecedented for a piece of drama. “Monutainment,” its producers call it, and they hope that in a world of digital entertainment and virtual reality, it will offer audiences the kind of visceral, eye-witness thrills your home entertainment system can’t deliver.
The numbers involved in this production are mind-boggling. The O2 Arena, in Greenwich, east London, holds 14,000 people and is more accustomed to hosting major pop stars. For “Ben Hur Live,” its 26,000-square-foot stage was overlaid with 620 tons of specially treated sand. The 90-minute show requires more than 400 performers from half a dozen countries, including 74 dancers and 66 Roman guards, and a 70-piece orchestra — along with 46 horses, pairs of donkeys, vultures, eagles, three falcons and 120 doves. Four miles of fabric were used for the costumes.
The highlight of the production is a climatic chariot race, in which five teams of four horses speed around the dirt oval at 35 mph. The good guys are being drawn by white horses, the bad guys by black. (The race is carefully choreographed, and at certain points, the bad guys lose a wheel or their chariot breaks apart.) The animals, Andualusians, underwent a year of intensive training to prepare for the show.
Another highlight — but only for adults — is an orgy scene. The throwdown includes plenty of nudity and finds actors getting it on in an above-the-belt fashion.
The cost of the London shows, which ran from Sept. 17 to 20, is estimated at $14 million. An additional $16 million will take the show to Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal, Austria, Hungary, France and Spain before the end of the year. It takes 20 trucks to transport the sand alone.
The spectacle is the brainchild of 45-year-old German producer Franz Abraham, a former racing driver who hatched the idea 15 years ago. His previous projects have included a 250-person production of the medieval manuscript “Carmina Burana” which, Abraham claims, more than a million people have seen — so he’s not stranger to grand undertakings. Even so, his choreographer, Liam Steel, describes the producer’s work on “Ben Hur Live” as “the equivalent of climbing Everest naked.” Abraham has gone into debt to make his dream a reality. “My children do not yet know whether they will take their piano lessons next year in a caravan or on a Steinway,” he has joked.
Rumors of superstar involvement with the project — Robert Redford, Daniel Radcliffe, Martin Scorsese — didn’t materialize, but Abraham secured high-caliber collaborators. The visual effects, incorporating wind, water and fire, come courtesy of Mark Fisher, who designed the Beijing Olympics’ opening and closing ceremonies, and Chris Corbould, who has worked on 10 James Bond movies. Stewart Copeland, drummer with the Police and prolific movie composer, wrote the score, and speaks the English narration — all the dialogue is in Latin and Aramaic. The costumiers are veterans of the movie “Gladiator” and the Broadway show “Beauty and the Beast.”
The novel “Ben-Hur: A Tale of Christ” was written by Lew Wallace, a Civil War general, in 1880 and proved hugely popular. It had already been a grand-scale hit on Broadway and a silent movie before William Wyler directed the famous 1959 Technicolor epic. Charlton Heston starred as the Jewish prince whose rivalry with Messala, the childhood friend turned Roman centurion who betrays him, is overshadowed by a miraculous encounter with Jesus. The film’s scale and costs put “Ben Hur Live” in the shade. At $15 million, it was the most expensive movie ever made at the time, using 300 sets and 8,000 performers. It recouped five times its budget and won a record-breaking 11 Oscars.
Even that scale, however, is peanuts by the standards of the historical Roman games. The Circus Maximus could seat a quarter of a million spectators. The story is that when everyone cheered, the noise carried for a dozen miles. The entertainment on show was considerably bloodier than anything we see today. Most chariot races and gladiator fights would result in fatalities. Criminals were publicly executed by gruesome means, such as being tied to a stake and torn apart by dogs. Slaves were often killed as part of dramatic enactments of battles on land and water.
A decision has yet to be made on whether the production will reach the United States, not to mention what venue in America could even hold such a spectacle, but Abraham’s children might just get that Steinway yet.