perspective

The first reviews for THEMS are hitting the wire, kids!

TimeOut Chicago
On Saturday 9, the Playground Theater debuted THEMS, a simultaneously creepy and goofy improvised play that lovingly spoofs the sci-fi/horror genre Ripley Scott mastered with Alien, the film that began an enduring (if not eventually lame) franchise and countless knockoffs.

THEMS takes place in 2156, in a post-earth society in which humans have now colonized Mars and are attempting to do the same with Venus. But in order to make the planet inhabitable, they must secure a rare element known as Carbon9. A crew of futuristic 49ers have landed on an uncharted asteroid and culled the largest concentration of the element in recorded history—a feat which will make them rich beyond their wildest dreams—if they can survive the journey home. A mysterious bacteria is latching onto crew members and zombifying them all—one poor bastard at a time.

In order to more fully immerse the audience into this premise, show producers John Eiberger and Ross Foti along with director Rebecca Langguth, have done something improvised shows rarely do, ratchet up the production values, and they’ve done it successfully. THEMS admirably transports the audience into outer space with painted canvass backgrounds that recreate the inner bowels of a spaceship, spacesuits for crew members, a crafty mainframe computer named VOX (played with deadpan earnest by Chris O. Biddle) who spits out commands and ship details and who we sense, like Ian Holm’s nefarious android Ash in Alien, has an agenda of its own, and face masks for the audience (a gratuitous, if not funny addition). There’s even a flamethrower!

But the real attention to detail is in character archetypes. THEMS‘ motley crew of greedy, booze-swilling space cowboys each maintains his own position aboard the ship—the veteran space engineer, the dutiful captain, the company man, etc.—and like in Alien (or even more accurately, Alien Resurrection), this grizzled band of galactic pirates each has an ulterior motive; they’re more devoid of humanity then the monster they’re warding off. THEMS is a wink-filled tribute to the characters and situations that fill the sci-fi genre and the ensemble plays this to the hilt. The pleasure in THEMS is watching these guys improvise their way out of stock sci-fi conundrums (the ship is self-destructing!, there’s not enough room in the escape pod for everyone!, there’s a stowaway on board!) and do so within the constraints of the genre. Although these feats were pulled off with only partial aplomb on opening night (a lot of plot lines ended up unresolved), as the ensemble continues to experiment week after week, it will be interesting to see how they’ll play with sci-fi’s unlimited possibilities.

THEMS probably won’t appeal to anyone who greeted the release of J.J. Abrams’ rebooted Star Trek with a yawn. But if you can name the actor and film in which the line “Game over, man! Game Over!” is uttered, then the Playground has a nice alternative to Sigourney Weaver duking it out with an angry alien bitch.


Then there's Don, who was less impressed with our efforts.

And since Don taught me the "art" of the "pick" when it comes to reviews, I'd like to thank him for writing the following in his review: "...unique...", "truly inspired", "sincerely busting their asses" , and "a real bitch."


Here's the deal. You don't create theater for reviews. You create it because you get an idea in your head that gets under your skin until you have to pull the trigger and manifest it on a stage.

(Good reviews can be helpful in getting asses in the seats, though, so I'm not looking any gift horse in the mouth. Nobody attached to THEMS is getting paid for their work - the main goal is to recoup production costs. Sounds kinda familiar, huh...?)

For me, the only opinions that truly matter are the folks who are working on the show. The ones who put the sweat in. When they are satifisfied with the performance they have given...that's the success. That's the worth.

That said, I really want the folks who lay down their dime to enjoy the show. Because I enjoyed my part in putting it there for their amusement.

Rooty toot.