After the apocalypse, life continues to Keep the Lights On

After the apocalypse, life continues to Keep the Lights On

by Miryam Gordon - SGN A&E Writer KEEP THE LIGHTS ON DIRECTED BY ELLIENNE MCKAY ANNEX THEATRE THROUGH MARCH 8 The overall premise of this evening at the Annex is really quite intriguing. They've created an atmosphere that presupposes there has been some cataclysmic event in the world and electricity is sparse to non-existent. So, in order to put on the play(s), they have to generate the electricity themselves. They've constructed large bicycle generators connected to, you can assume, everything electric in the theater environment, including the bar, the hallway and the bathroom. Costumes, designed by Emily Carlsen, are of interesting materials like plastic bags, paper and other recycled materials. The program is printed on the blank side of an already-printed paper. Reuse is everywhere. I found the premise so intriguing that it overshadows the three short plays of the evening. 1001 by Scot Augustson is a strange story of Za and his birth, but that's about all I can actually explain. It would have been useful to have an explanation of what Augustson's intention was for it. Foxy Populi, by Elizabeth Heffron, is a frenetic depiction of a Britney-Spears-like creature who behaves in crazy ways and loses her children. It's fast and furious and sad and strange, but then, that little description describes how we, the populous, feel about Britney, herself. Megan Ahiers channels Britney fairly accurately, as if Britney had suddenly shown up to be in this play. The last short of the evening is ElectriCity by Bret Fetzer and Juliet Waller Pruzan. While it was hard to discern the point of the story, it had the most intriguing contexts and the best acting from Pamala Mijatov as a little girl who visits this strange amusement park. She has a particularly haunting little girl voice, as she observes too much for her own good. Here, the overall theme of the evening was made clearer by the little girl asking her parents what the "sun" was, when they spoke of it longingly, and how did "sun" on a body feel. I wished more of the evening had been focused on the premise they created, rather than the plays performed by these fake residents of Lack-of-Electricity-Town. It's a worthy effort, an interesting evening and a challenge to think about what a world might be like after & whatever it is after. Could it have been taken even further and deeper? What would that be like, I wonder? For more information, go to www.annextheatre.org or call 206-728-0933. Comments on reviews go to sgncritic@gmail.com.