Evren
The long voyage of the Evren begins with the countdown to launch, a four strong crew under the supervision of Captain Charlie Hansen who together will spend the majority of the voyage in the long sleep of suspended animation before they are awakened eighty years later to undertake their ultimate mission, the dangerous descent into the event horizon of a black hole.
Devised by the cast (Amanda Caliolo, also set designer, Alexandra Caprara, also lighting designer, Eric Marshall, also costume designer, Jackie McCowan, also set designer and Liam Murphy, also set designer), it is consipicious that Toronto’s So, That Was Fun! Theatre do not list a specific director who might have shaped the mission more coherently.
Instead, awoken thirteen years shy of their destination by the automated systems when another candidate black hole is detected en route, the cast stumble around a stage which is not so much minimal as non-existent, waste time performing “space movement” and mumble their lines into the floor as they scrape and bang chairs beneath a repeating loop of bleeps and bloops ad infinitum.
That the dialogue can be barely discerned is somewhat of a blessing, as the minimal plot is devoid of a single unique or unusual idea as the crew whine and bicker among themselves, less professional and capable spacefarers so much as moody post-teenagers in a performance which has the intellectual and emotional scope of a children’s show.
The “woken” span of the show taken place over a span of years, as chronicled by the rear-projected graphic of starfield, system diagnostics and medical scans, the only aspect of the show which demonstrates a competent hand, the flashback which should illuminate the crew and their mission aboard the Evren so poorly presented as to bamboozle until it becomes apparent this is supposed to represent a first meeting rather than a moment of amnesia.
The crew are as bereft of personality at the end of this period as at the start, their lack of change or growth so stunted they may as well have spent the time remaining in stasis, and the only useful information successfully passed back from beyond the black hole is that an enthusiasm for science and science fiction is not necessarily equivalent to the ability to write or present it.
Evren continues until Saturday 18th August
