Pioneer
The stage is bathed in soft light and ethereal choral music; one side is dominated by a diorama of the surface of Mars with a habitation, the other a sparse futuristic office space. He is pensive as he examines the proposed landing site; she is calm as she oversees operations. The two sides of the endeavour of exploration are represented, the determined resolve and the detached rationality, but though both operate through the technology they have devised, they are human and thus inherently flawed.
On Mars, Imke Van der Berg (Flora Denman) rises from dreams of distant Earth to be told that communication has been lost with her husband Oskar, out on the surface attending to the solar panels; according to protocols, she cannot leave the base to seek him, only wait for his return. Her only companion is JUN, monitoring and caring for her, but unable to offer comfort or wisdom beyond its programmed parameters.
Fifty six million miles away on Earth, Shari Dasgupta (Emily Lloyd-Saini) is flight director of the Ghara 1 mission, three astronauts en route to Mars, an American husband and wife and their French companion; with no flags and no political agenda it is a truly multinational effort sponsored by 128 organisations across thirty seven countries.
Unlike the media circus of the failed Mars One project of 2025, regarded as a “media circus” rather than a serious scientific attempt to establish a viable colony, Ghara 1 has been calculated to succeed, but only Shari and her inner circle know of Imke and Oscar’s secret pathfinder mission to establish the long term effects of Martian isolation.
Alyosha Borolo (James Hardy) dreams of America and space; he will leave Mother Russia for one as a springboard to the other, but prior to his departure he persuades his cynical elder brother Ivan (Stephen Bisland) to join him on a road trip of sites of the Soviet space programme, which will ultimately take them to the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the steppes of Kazakhstan.
Curious Directive’s Pioneer is ambitious as the mission it portrays, effectively creating zero gravity on near zero budget as the versatile modular set becomes the different areas of the Martian settlement, sleeping quarters, laboratory, the Earth room, and the Ghara 1 mission in transit, the submarine where Imke’s sister Maartje (Caitlin Ince) conducts research in the deep Pacific, even the club where Shari and her colleague Rudi Van der Waal (Gabrielle Lombardo) dance while the visuals of 2001’s stargate sequence blend in with the beats.
Making great use of immersive sound designed and rear projected graphics throughout, not only are the performances of the troupe strong but they are consistently perfect coordinated with their surroundings without ever feeling forced or over-rehearsed. A work of intellectual speculative fiction where the characters are isolated, it verges towards cold, even sterile, with the interludes of Alyosha and Ivan apparently serving only to keep the piece warm and vital until the disparate strands of the story weave together in an echo of the opening monologue which states that jumping into the darkness is the only way that humans can survive, an optimistic belief in a future in which we can achieve despite the failings of the humans involved and the debts which must be paid.
Pioneer continues until Monday 25th August and is staged at the Watford Palace Theatre on 29th and 30th August
