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Post-apocalyptic high jinks on display at MTC
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| PHOTO BY DAVIDALLENSTUDIO.COM Blythe Foster as Jo and Nicholas Pelczar as Jules in the Bay Area premiere of “Boom” by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, at the Marin Theatre Company. |
By Woody Weingarten
Marinscope Newspapers
Food is at the heart of "Boom."
After 267 days in a sealed underground bunker-laboratory, there’s none left.
Still, folks with a palate for high jinks will devour the primordial soup at the Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley through Dec. 6.
Playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, whose personal evolution can be traced to Marin, tackles no less than the origin of our species (and 65 million years of development, give or take a little) in one surreal, darkly comic act.
In 90 R-rated minutes.
His doomsday scenario features three characters that supply a steady flow of cerebral one-liners and serio-comic commentaries on the human condition.
Nachtrieb, a thirtysomething Mill Valley native who attended Marin Academy, provides an abundance of tampons, diapers and wisecracks to contrast with the disheartening lack of life-sustaining edibles. He also presents Jules, a gay marine biologist bent on repopulating humanity after a comet decimates the planet, and Jo, a baby-hating student journalist bent on — well, that’s mostly a puzzler since she frequently passes out in mid-sentence whenever danger lurks.
The two would-be, post-apocalyptic lovers tussle with questions of survival while Barbara, a museum curator cum Wizardess-of-Ooze or deity, furnishes meandering annotation via words, action-controlling levers and booming drums.
An uproarious slapstick seduction attempt initially sets the tone (she offers sex; he offers spanakopita).
But the scientist-optimist quickly muddies matters by announcing that for four years he’s been watching fish hide from the impending end of the world.
And Barbara, in an aside that foreshadows a slew of dualities, reveals that a government-designed cave saved key human “thinkers, athletes, donors” — but then collapsed. Not incidentally, she also lets the audience in on the idea that the tale being viewed may be but one version of many possibilities, limited, in fact, only by “physical, cognitive and budgetary” considerations.
This account finds Jules (skillfullly portrayed by Nicholas Pelczar) as a tunnel-visioned optimist who occasionally speaks in hyperbole and blatantly bad poetry (like “being a sprig on the great bush of life”).
He believes it his destiny to inseminate Jo regardless of her resistance (and she believes it necessary to hilariously detail each of his bizarre tries).
Jo (adroitly acted by Blythe Foster) tends to display — albeit with glibness — a somewhat frayed worldview, or at least a robust desire to return immediately to what had been the status quo.
Her frequent side-splitting obscenities also accentuate her frustrations.
Meanwhile, what purports to be an even-handed perspective pours from the equally uncensored lips of Barbara (with show-stopping comic genius Joan Mankin mischievously breaking the Fourth Wall). Consider such droll observations as “the fan has really been hit.”
Director Ryan Rilette seamlessly keeps the pace steady (somewhere near hectic), the timing exquisite and the freeze-frame cinematic lighting perfect.
He also ensures that the inflated physicality and facial expressions of his three actors are brilliantly over the top.
Indeed, he never lets anything become too sane or too clear (until the play’s pre-fade-to-black climax), and never lets the writer’s thematic gravity overcome the play’s absurdist humor.
Nachtrieb, a dual theater and biology major at Brown University who now lives in San Francisco’s Mission District, is a Monty Python fan whose play “Hunter Gatherers” was an award-winning 2006 San Francisco outgrowth of his work with the Killing My Lobster sketch-comedy troupe.
His new material shows he unmistakably enjoys delving into randomness vs. fate.
In the case of “Boom,” however, it’s really no contest. The play seems destined to be a smash — not unlike, let’s say, the impact of a comet hitting Earth.
“Boom” will play at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through Dec. 6. Night shows 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays through Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Matinees 1 p.m. Thursdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $20 to $51. Information: 388-5208 or marintheatre.org.
After 267 days in a sealed underground bunker-laboratory, there’s none left.
Still, folks with a palate for high jinks will devour the primordial soup at the Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley through Dec. 6.
Playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, whose personal evolution can be traced to Marin, tackles no less than the origin of our species (and 65 million years of development, give or take a little) in one surreal, darkly comic act.
In 90 R-rated minutes.
His doomsday scenario features three characters that supply a steady flow of cerebral one-liners and serio-comic commentaries on the human condition.
Nachtrieb, a thirtysomething Mill Valley native who attended Marin Academy, provides an abundance of tampons, diapers and wisecracks to contrast with the disheartening lack of life-sustaining edibles. He also presents Jules, a gay marine biologist bent on repopulating humanity after a comet decimates the planet, and Jo, a baby-hating student journalist bent on — well, that’s mostly a puzzler since she frequently passes out in mid-sentence whenever danger lurks.
The two would-be, post-apocalyptic lovers tussle with questions of survival while Barbara, a museum curator cum Wizardess-of-Ooze or deity, furnishes meandering annotation via words, action-controlling levers and booming drums.
An uproarious slapstick seduction attempt initially sets the tone (she offers sex; he offers spanakopita).
But the scientist-optimist quickly muddies matters by announcing that for four years he’s been watching fish hide from the impending end of the world.
And Barbara, in an aside that foreshadows a slew of dualities, reveals that a government-designed cave saved key human “thinkers, athletes, donors” — but then collapsed. Not incidentally, she also lets the audience in on the idea that the tale being viewed may be but one version of many possibilities, limited, in fact, only by “physical, cognitive and budgetary” considerations.
This account finds Jules (skillfullly portrayed by Nicholas Pelczar) as a tunnel-visioned optimist who occasionally speaks in hyperbole and blatantly bad poetry (like “being a sprig on the great bush of life”).
He believes it his destiny to inseminate Jo regardless of her resistance (and she believes it necessary to hilariously detail each of his bizarre tries).
Jo (adroitly acted by Blythe Foster) tends to display — albeit with glibness — a somewhat frayed worldview, or at least a robust desire to return immediately to what had been the status quo.
Her frequent side-splitting obscenities also accentuate her frustrations.
Meanwhile, what purports to be an even-handed perspective pours from the equally uncensored lips of Barbara (with show-stopping comic genius Joan Mankin mischievously breaking the Fourth Wall). Consider such droll observations as “the fan has really been hit.”
Director Ryan Rilette seamlessly keeps the pace steady (somewhere near hectic), the timing exquisite and the freeze-frame cinematic lighting perfect.
He also ensures that the inflated physicality and facial expressions of his three actors are brilliantly over the top.
Indeed, he never lets anything become too sane or too clear (until the play’s pre-fade-to-black climax), and never lets the writer’s thematic gravity overcome the play’s absurdist humor.
Nachtrieb, a dual theater and biology major at Brown University who now lives in San Francisco’s Mission District, is a Monty Python fan whose play “Hunter Gatherers” was an award-winning 2006 San Francisco outgrowth of his work with the Killing My Lobster sketch-comedy troupe.
His new material shows he unmistakably enjoys delving into randomness vs. fate.
In the case of “Boom,” however, it’s really no contest. The play seems destined to be a smash — not unlike, let’s say, the impact of a comet hitting Earth.
“Boom” will play at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through Dec. 6. Night shows 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays through Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, 7 p.m. Sundays. Matinees 1 p.m. Thursdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $20 to $51. Information: 388-5208 or marintheatre.org.
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| Desperately Marin Housewife |
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