‘This isn’t grandma’s Shakespeare’: Spokane Falls Community College presents ‘Barbecue Apocalypse,’ a play with duality

As it gets colder, it’s easy to reminisce about the fun of summer barbecues with friends. The sun is shining, music playing in the background, conversations flowing – it’s the perfect way to spend the afternoon.

But when the old adage, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” rears its head, temperatures among guests are as hot as the grill, plus an apocalypse to boot, the afternoon can quickly turn more than sour.

In “Barbecue Apocalypse,” written by Matt Lyle, three couples meet for a summer barbecue at the home of Mike and Deb, who deal with feelings of inadequacy in practically all aspects of their lives, from their choice in home decor to their respective careers.

Ash is a “successful yuppy” who is constantly annoying his wife Lulu, who likes to drink. Then there’s the obnoxious Win, who considers himself charming, and his new girlfriend Glory, who is too young and beautiful to find favor with Deb and Lulu.

In the show’s first act, audiences witness arguments over the difference between “organic” and “all natural beef,” who is pregnant versus who has just gained weight, and one character’s addiction to their iPhone, all leading to “a flash of inept violence” involving Win and Deb.

As the barbecue reaches a peak, the characters learn the world has been, quite literally, falling apart, hence the “apocalypse” in the play’s name.

In the second act, the three couples gather for another barbecue to celebrate the first anniversary of the apocalypse. It’s during this act that the audiences see which characters have stepped up to the challenge and which characters have fallen behind.

The play opens Friday at the Spokane Falls Community College’s Spartan Theatre.

Director Chris Hansen was unfamiliar with “Barbecue Apocalypse” before it was suggested for consideration for the 2024-25 season by members of the SFCC theater team and student acting club.

After whittling down the options, the selection committee found that “Barbecue Apocalypse” received the most votes. Hansen said the play was popular because it ticked the “comedy” box the students were interested in and was a fairly new show, having premiered in 2016.

“Also the relatability,” he said. “This was subject matter in dialogue that they have heard their friends talking about, or they themselves have already experienced, and it was extremely relatable to relationships and how people are.”

Early in the rehearsal process, Hansen and the cast talked about the nuances of relationships, both good and bad, and how they understood the world. How did they view their beliefs or the society in which they found themselves? Their culture? How did they feel the world viewed them?

The exploration then turned to actors finding similarities and differences with their characters.

“We had a little exploration about what makes you anxious, what doesn’t and is there anything that you resonate with with other characters as well?” Hansen said. “That way they could find a community in their ensemble to help each other understand as well.”

From Act 1 to Act 2, or pre- and post-apocalypse, the characters make a 180-degree turn, with some thriving and others barely surviving. Hansen said he and the cast spent time looking at each act as if it was its own play to fully develop both sides to the characters.

In Act 1, audiences see the characters as they are based in reality. For Act 2, the actors thought about how their character’s life would have changed over the first year of the apocalypse.

“A lot of them brought in lockdown because that’s the closest thing they’ve got to reference,” Hansen said. “It helped us out a lot, because they had something to pull from. We spent a good two weeks on understanding the differences between the two acts so that they could learn to create a separate yet connected character.”

To match the change in characters between acts, set designer Dennis Pham created a visual shift that expresses the fact that time has passed without revealing the kind of apocalypse the characters have experienced.

Hansen understands audiences might be reluctant to watch a play like “Barbecue Apocalypse” with memories of the COVID pandemic and lockdown still feeling fresh, but he also wants people to remember how they turned to art during that time.

There is a little meta-commentary in the show, Hansen said, about how society views art and artists as something enjoyable but not necessary until the moment they’re without it.

“It lets them see some familiarity of how the world treats us so far based off of our own decisions, so we can see the self,” he said. “There’s always a little bit of a mirror to the self and society. At the same time, it’s contemporary. It’s brand new. This isn’t grandma’s Shakespeare; this is real art being made post-2000.

“This is showing us that the theater is alive and it is completely well, and it’s also still an educational space. Even in educational spaces, we get to experiment with what it means to be an artist anymore.”