Chimera Ensemble’s How To Live on Earth tracks applicants vying for a spot on a one-way mission to colonize Mars.
Artfully constructed by playwright M.J. Kaufman as a series of short scenes, How To Live on Earth introduces us to four aspiring space travelers – a librarian, a software engineer, a lost Millennial, a physician – and we watch as they move through stages of the space vetting process.
From 200,000 entries, the field is narrowed to 100, giving these four a significant chance to board the rocket when it departs in a year. These vignettes, mostly about single people, may remind you of the 1986 film About Last Night (itself drawn from a play by David Mamet).
But this group is heading for the stars. Each makes it to a different stage in the Mars expedition: the businessman and the millennial are rejected early in the process; the librarian fails during an isolation test. Just one – the doctor Bill (Brian Sheridan) – makes it all the way to Mars. Along with the applicants’ varied backgrounds, personalities and motivations to go, come various levels of personal baggage.
Along the way, we also meet their loved ones. Katlynn Yost plays Eleanor, the librarian, and she and her tall bearded poet Russ (Graham Carlson) are just beginning to date, but the possibility of the Mars mission dampens Russ’s enthusiasm for emotional investment. The software engineer, Omar (Arif Yampolsky) is in a 5-year relationship with Rick (Jermaine Robinson, Jr.) who asks, naturally, “Why do you want to leave me for Mars?” The lost Millennial, Aggie (Hannah Larson), is relentlessly coached to win selection for Mars by her father Robert (Bob Webb), but she can’t coach him to say he will miss her.
The outlier is physician Bill (Brian Sheridan), an Ironman, competitive rock-climbing alpha male over-achiever, who we learn was invited to apply, and who eventually does make the journey to the Red Planet. He Skypes his disaffected step brother, Don (Siddhartha Rajan) who had always lived in Bill’s shadow; and his mother Carol (Stacey Lind) who now mourns losing him.
The script contains colorful touches: Brian's mother Carol rewinds and rewatches her son walk across a screen several times, with this scene re-enacted in forward and reverse. In two bar scenes, it is women characters who take the first move toward guys they want. Kaufman artfully weaves together the interconnections of these characters, and the varying length vignettes build into a cohesive rise, with real dramatic weight despite their brevity. A rising playwright and script writer, with an MFA from Yale School of Drama, Kaufman is currently a staff writer on Netflix's The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
With the spare nature of the script, the play may seem limited in emotional dimension, but it is certainly inferred. In this regard, the librarian Eleanor comes closest to being a central character for the audience. The earth-bound brother Don, and Russ’s partner Rick give the strongest expression to the emotional depths of this Martian adventure, which throws everyone's lives up for grabs, including those remaining on Earth.
Don also dispenses some wisdom, commenting on the Martian adventurers: "Why do people love to dream? To get love. But when people arrive at their dream, the don't get any more love - and they feel empty."
Director Gwendolyn Wiegold has drawn a very consistent level of performance from these nine actors, allowing the essence of Kaufman's intriguing story to come through in this 90 minute show with no intermission. The fresh style and youthful energy of this cast are well worth seeing and we recommend you not miss the chance. Chimera Ensemble's How To Live On Earth runs through March 24 at the Flat Iron Arts Bulding in Chicago.
