| . | 03/19/2008
BOOM
By: Eugene Paul
Lucas Near-Verbrugghe as Jules, Megan Ferguson as Jo
Photo Credit: Carol Rosegg
Embarking on a broader scale, Ars Nova launches its exploration of new works with BOOM, an eye – and mind – opener that gets you from the get-go and never lets up. Smack down the middle of the theater marches trim, black clad, red haired Barbara. She turns at the stage, casts an appraising eye on us all, then goes to her control room just off the side of the proscenium. She evaluates us once more, then strikes a gong, zips through some other hocus-pocus and throws a huge switch. The curtain opens and we are in a slick, whitish enameled lab, reinforced ceiling, steel entry door. A large fish tank center, and a futon? Jo enters, young, pretty, horny, grabs Jules, trim, proper, older, and after a huge smooch orders him to take off his shirt. At once! Compliant Jules, instigator of this blind e-date, removes his shirt. Now pants, orders Jo. Slowly, Jules removes pants and Jo throws herself on him, at him, over him. Yes, they’ve never met before but this is what they’re meeting for: sex. Only Jules, backpedalling, tells her he’s gay and the dynamics change drastically. Then why is she here? And things get interesting.
Using the fish tank as his demonstration point, Jules, a marine biologist, tries to explain to an increasingly sullen, suspicious, leery Jo that the actions of the fish have convinced him that there is going to be an enormous cataclysmic event. She is positive she’s walked into a maniac’s lair and when he goes to the storage room she tries the door. He’s locked it. She checks the cabinets for keys. Full. Of whiskey in one. Plants in the next. Cereal in the next. Tampons and diapers in the next – and she panics.
All the while, the red headed dominatrix in the control room has been putting in her two cents and obviously controlling moments. Or causing interactions. Or something. She sure makes us curious. So that when Jules says the cataclysmic event is going to happen soon and Jo asks how soon and he says seven minutes, we are more than curious. And – damned if it doesn’t happen. Crash! Boom!. We are choking on dust and smoke. The fun and games are over. Or are they? There’s still that control room and that strange, gleaming Barbara who looks a little loony to us, too, at this point.
When the smoke and dust clear enough and the auxiliary power turns on some light in the wrecked lab, we see that the fish and the fish tank have survived and so have Jo and Jules. And Jules’s strategy of having a female to help him repopulate the planet after everything has been wiped out by the comet which he knew would strike the earth, his strategy is not going well. She hates him. She would rather die. She would rather kill him. They are going to die anyway. And so on. Not Jules. They are going to be there three or four years until the earth is visitable once more, let’s make the best of it…NOT! Jo breaks his leg after several months of him trying to inseminate her every which way. Their supplies have been mostly destroyed. He offers his leg for food.
Throughout, our mad dea ex machina, Barbara, pulls her switches, bangs her gong, and comments, and comments and comments. We have become –well, not less confused, but more wondering? We want to know what is going to happen and How Will It All End? If this is the end of humans on earth, who is she and what the hell is going on?
Playwright Peter Sinn Nachtreib has crafted a darkly humorous inquiry into evolution and whether or not humans belong here. It is one of the most interesting plays in New York. Director Alex Timbers works hand in glove with his playwright, keeping his remarkably agile cast in topflight form. I liked them all, Megan Ferguson as the feisty Jo, Lucas Near-Verbrugghe as Jules, the scientist who does not know his own species too well, and Susan Wands, as the mysterious Barbara, who talks too much and reveals not enough, until the very end, creating a whole new set of questions. I really liked that. Wilson Chin has fashioned a fine setting and deconstructed it as well. Marcus Doshi’s lighting design needs to work flawlessly and does. And Mark Huang’s sound design enhances linkages between the control room and the lab famously. BOOM. Sure takes your mind off local politics.
*
BOOM. At Ars Nova, 511 West 54th Street. Wed-Sat 8 pm, Sun 7 pm. Tickets: $25. Smartix:212-868-4444 or smartix.com.
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