By Susan Mulford, Boston and Beyond
Stephen King, the prolific writer of horror once stated, “You can’t be afraid for the characters if they are just cardboard cut-outs. What I want the audience to do is fall in love with these people and really care about them and that creates the suspense you need. Love creates the horror.” Under the artfully gifted direction of award-winning Lindsay Eagle, she has taken the characters in Alistair McDowall’s groundbreaking Sci-Fi, psychodrama, and developed the personalities of each individual of the four (3 men and 1 woman) crew of an ill-fated mission to a space station on the planet Pluto. She has also immersed us, through the intimate theater and a simplistic marginal common room on a fictional space station, created by Darren Cornell to further draw the audience into our relationship with the astronaut’s plight. Through conversation it is revealed that earth is slowly dying having lost almost all its resources including trees and, god forbid, beef. This further provide insight into each astronauts strengths, frailties and coping mechanisms. We want these individuals to be saved.
The first astronaut is the captain, Ray, played by David Anderson. He is the oldest, has piloted many space missions but is not happy about this being his last mission. He knows NASA will finally ground him. He poignantly recants his tales of when the earth was alive with real food and even the songs of birds, as he practices on his bird whistles…so he won’t forget what birds ever sounded like. Gilda, played by Cassandra Meyer is second in command and a geologist. Her fears anxiety overtly present itself when the four realize that they are cut off from all earth communication. Clark, played by Nick Perron, is gregarious and almost seems to hide his true feeling and fear behind a wall of words. He shares his memory of earth when he was 6 and touched a tree as it was being hauled away on a truck. Slava Tchoul plays Cole, an inordinately reserved astrophysicist who actually seems to have a family back on earth. He is the one who initially discovers that the stations clock as well as their wristwatches are no longer keeping earth time. Time pieces are periodically racing ahead or standing still. While Cole attempts to find an algorithm that will fix it, they continuously loose all sense of time…followed by their sanity. With earth in such a mess, one can only wonder what there is to go back to, but being trapped in a small space cannot provide joy either. You want to champion for their survival until they begin to hear strange sounds, see a girl looking in at them from their window as she stands outside on the barren, frigid planet. She has an X where a mouth should be. She may crawl out of a cupboard as well as others and speak to them or maybe has arrived to save them, and then again it may be someone from their past, all played by Abigail Erdelatz. The edges of reality begin to blur as even the individual’s recollection of events deteriorate and fantasy takes the place of reality…even driving some to acts of violence. One begins to question where the forces of influence are coming from Is it something…or… is it someone out of their realm controlling these phenomenon. Or, is it all in their minds as this edgy production Channels sci-fi horror classics such as Alien, Event Horizon, and Sunshine. You so totally want them to be saved like with Sigourney Weaver! Due to language and some bloody gore, this production is not recommended for children under 14. Tickets for this engaging and thrilling production may be obtained at www.flatearththeatre.com