went to see jay scheib’s untitled mars at PS122 tonight. i had heard mixed things but i’m glad to say that i really enjoyed it. it is a cool mix of Phillip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, multi-media, documentary and avant-garde performance.  knowing jay’s process i’m sure the show will continue to evolved and change over time, realistically this is more of a “work-in-progress” than a finished product, but it is a fun experiment and there’s lots of interesting nuggets of theatrical goodness in there. Hungarian actress Dorka Gryllus is downtown theater’s newest luscious sexpot. and I’m just repeating what  I heard people saying in the hall after the show. but the whole cast is really strong, there are a lot of Scheib regulars in there and they deliver in intensity and style.

My favorite part was this video segment of one of the visionary MIT Mars Scholars comparing his work to that of Jules Verne. He talks about how Verne was both right and wrong in his predictions, how he was a 19th Century mind trying to solve 20th Century problems. And then he said that we had 20th century minds trying to solve 22nd Century problems. It was fascinating and strangely optimistic. Like, we DO have the ability to create the future if we choose to do so.  Really neat.

The only thing that kind of freaked me out was how reminiscent the set was to Itching of the Wings, the Phillipe Quesne/Vivarium Studio show that played at PS122 in 2005 as part of act french. it had similar back-wall projections (completed with a professor being interviewed about flight and exploration), an enclosed room with a door on stage left, and tables full of technical gear downstage from whence the show was operated. It was kind of a strange avant-garde deja vu echo thing. Similar themes, similar aesthetic but very different results.

Anyhoo – go check it out!