CurtainUp
The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features,
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CurtainUp The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features,
Annotated Listings |
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A CurtainUp Review
Hello, From the Children of Planet Earth
By Jon Magaril
The title of Dan Nguyen's new play, Hello, from the Children of Planet Earth , quotes a young boy heard in the multi-lingual recording collected by Carl Sagan and carried on the Voyager probe across the cosmos. The ebullient comedy gives Voyager its own voice in reply. In these imaginative passages, Nguyen's poetically sly sensibility comes through loud and clear. When it comes to the human characters, though: Houston, we have a problem. The twin-engined plot centers on William (Jeffrey Omura), an aerospace engineer who, while tracking Voyager I's journey through space, agrees to be a sperm donor to a lesbian couple, Betsy (Kaaron Briscoe) and Shoshana (Dana Berger). Writers looking for subject matter are advised to pick what they know and what they love. Nguyen has obeyed, taking the NASA milieu from his childhood obsession and the issues of male surrogacy from direct experience. The topics seem initially incongruous, regardless of their connection to Nguyen's life and interests. He engineers simultaneous crises which might seem convenient in a more naturalistic medium like film. It succeeds here through the revelation of thematic correspondence: NASA stops receiving signals from Voyager just as the OB-GYN can't hear the baby's heartbeat. Aided by Kimie Nishikawa's evocatively space age set, Nguyen creates a theatrical constellation of loss, loneliness, and yearning. With dynamic theatrical conceits and intense emotional engagement, the play is primed to fire on all cylinders. One can understand why Hello, from the Children of Planet Earth garnered the support of the estimable Playwright Realm, which recently produced the premieres of Sarah Delappe's The Wolves and Mfoniso Udofia's Sojourners, both of which graduated to longer runs at Lincoln Center and New York Theatre Workshop respectively. It's less understandable why Playwrights Realm felt the current draft was ready for a full production. The text scrambles the strong signals of his personal and professional interests by adding the generic white noise of sitcom-style characterization and banter. Shoshana's the one with the caustic wit, so she remains the foil. Betsy's inherently warm, so of course is the one who'll carry the child. She and William are kept bland enough to invite the greatest sense of identification from the widest swath of the audience. The inclusion of William's office buddy, Freddy (Jon Hoche), does the most damage by adding little beyond bloat and a supposedly funny affection and irregular pronunciation of Cheetos. Mystifyingly, Nguyen trots him out incessantly, even sending him over to the expecting couple's house for no reason, like a series regular whose contract demands a minimum number of minutes per episode. Hoche and Berger never grate, but none of the capable quartet makes much of an impression. Their performances all operate within the same basic bandwith. Director Jade King Carroll's staging doesn't help them find room to move expansively on that set or internally through a range of emotions. As a result, they seem cast adrift. The character at risk of being truly lost in space, "The Farthest Explorer in the Universe," is the one most at home on the set and in the play. As performed by the buoyant Olivia Oguma, this anthropomorphized Voyager I becomes the production's most recognizably human creation. Traveling farthest away from his actual circumstances, Nguyen makes contact with something poetically and emotionally true. The Farthest Explorer has us at "Hello." |
Search CurtainUp in the box below PRODUCTION NOTES Hello, From the Children of Planet Earth by Dan Nguyen Directed by Jade King Carroll Cast: Kaaron Briscoe, Dana Berger, Jeffrey Omura, Jon Hoche and Olivia Oguma Set Design: Kimie Nishikawa Costume Design: Ari Fulton Lighting Design: Nicole Pearce Sound Design: Elisheba Ittoop Production Stage Manager: Kara Kaufman Plays through March 24, 2018 at the Duke on 42nd St, 229 W 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036, (212) 255-3089, info@playwrightsrealm.org Running time: One hour and forty minutes Reviewed by Jon Magaril by Dan Nguyen Directed by Jade King Carroll Cast: Kaaron Briscoe, Dana Berger, Jeffrey Omura, Jon Hoche and Olivia Oguma Set Design: Kimie Nishikawa Costume Design: Ari Fulton Lighting Design: Nicole Pearce Sound Design: Elisheba Ittoop Production Stage Manager: Kara Kaufman Plays through March 24, 2018 at the Duke on 42nd St, 229 W 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036, (212) 255-3089, info@playwrightsrealm.org Running time: One hour and forty minutes Reviewed by Jon Magaril REVIEW FEEDBACK Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
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