When the Lovely Bride and I attend theater at Arts West in West Seattle, we often have dinner at our favorite expensive sushi place, Mashiko. As such we've become semi-regulars, and the staff recognizes us, so much so that they know not to put a cucumber slice in the LB's waterglass.
And I was talking to one of the staff yesterday, and he asked if we were doing a play that evening.
"Yes," I replied.
"What's it called?" he asked.
"Walden," I responded.
"It's about Thoreau? he asked.
"I don't know," I admitted, "I go into these things blind."
I was a little embarrassed to admit that I don't usually "prep" for a play, but I'm glad I responded truthfully. Because saying "It's about astronaut sisters in an apocalyptic future" might be both a bit off-putting and misleading.
But that's what it is about. And about family, the past, choices, and the future.
OK, here's the deal. We're in the not-too-distant-future, and the world is in the grips of an unevenly-distributed apocalypse. News reports tell of mega-tsunamis, climate collapse, millions dead and more turned into refugees. Stella (Porcha Shaw) and Cassie (Marena Kleinpeter) are astronaut/scientists. Stella washed out of the program after some brilliant initial designs. Cassie has spent the past year on the Moon, and is now heading to Mars. After she left the program, Stella retreated inland to a small self-supporting community of EAs (Earth Advocates) who reject the modern technology that is killing the planet. She fell in love with Bryan (Josh Kenji Langager), an EA going through his own pain. And, after some time of silence between the sisters, Cassie comes to visit.
And that's where we start. Shaw's Stella is both wounded and majestic. Kleinpeter's Cassie is nervous and rational by turns. Their characters are both seeking to understand where their lives are going and what remains of their familial bond. Their past haunts them and the uncertain future yawns before them. And Langager's Bryan is goofy, good-natured, and kindhearted, trying to help but not knowing how. His character is a little bit of brilliant, in that he opposes the technology that Cassie and Stella have embodied, but does so in a positive way. This play could have been polemic, instead it is deeply personal. It's a really good play, backed by excellent performances.
And let me give a shout-out to the set design as well, as the play is set on the deck outside Bryan and Stella's scratch-built cabin, surrounded by plants, backed by stars. Very much an Edenic home. The sound design, with news reports of the collapse outside (never specific, always generalized) contrasts with this peace perfectly.
Science fiction on the stage is tough, because SF is a genre of big ideas and big actions, while the theater always seeks to exceed the edges of the stage. Yet by distilling this down to the personal level, Walden makes it all come alive. And yeah, Thoreau pops up a couple times, both from the sisters' father quoting it, the name of one of Stella's projects, and the very idea of "Living deliberately". This is one that's worth seeing.
And of course, the evening that we saw it was the evening that the four astronauts of the Artemis II mission splashed down off the coast of San Diego. So there's a bit of historical irony in the evening as well.
More later,
