Through Sept 13.
"Life is a daring adventure, or nothing," observed Helen Keller, and she was deaf as a stump and blind as a bat's baseballs. The same is naturally true, by extension, of any good to really fantastic theater. But it's puzzling how rarely the slightest smattering of daring or adventure ever rears its head amid the flotsamy jetsam that the would-be theater-lover grinningly endures. And this is to say nothing of the too often errant virtues of vision, innovation, unique storytelling, and/or remarkable concepts in set, costume, and/or sound.
Happily, Extropia, the dazzling, generous-spirited new play about a man in a world with no music, is a towering pile of exception.
"We booked Re-bar in August with no idea what we would do specifically," explains project collaborator Michael McQuilken of the genesis of Extropia. McQuilken, a "young genius from Seattle" (if Entertainment Weekly is to be believed--and it almost always is), helped develop Extropia's unique concept and, along with Brant Campbell, co-composed and performs live the percussive and experimental sound work responsible for so much of the show's richness and energy.
"We were brainstorming ideas and came up with this loose idea of a man who discovers music in a world in which it previously did not exist," McQuilken says. By "we" he means Collaborator LLC, a new production company run by McQuilken, Campbell, coauthor/actor/director Gabriel Baron, and actor Troy Miszklevitz, and dedicated to the quest of "uniting collaborative talent for the purposes of creating exciting new work."
"All of us share a live/work space, and have intended to regularly produce shows, music, visual art, et cetera," McQuilken explains. But although many of the artists involved with Collaborator LLC have worked together on previous projects (McQuilken and Baron's popular Ballyhoo, for example), Extropia will count as the first official production under Collaborator LLC's theatrical belt.
"My understanding is that there were no auditions," says Rhonda Soikowski, a Collaborator collaborator who plays Extropia's Arie--an advanced soul/idiot savant/comic relief/spiritual guide type of gal who counsels the protagonist through the personal crisis caused by his burgeoning musical genius. "It was just a compiling of great people that the Collaborator folks had worked with before and had faith in. The piece was to be shaped by the ensemble, and actor input was encouraged."
McQuilken explains that the production's concept was based upon the real-life shenanigans of modern-day mad doctors. "We found an article about the [real] Extropian Society--a group of scientists working on human technological enhancement, their goal a disease-less, stupidity- less, genetically enhanced physical prowess type future. In an 'Extropian' world, art would serve little purpose, being that it is an expression of longing, extreme emotion, or other such unevolved states of human thinking." Or so the theory goes. The notion of this artless utopia snatched up the imaginations of the Collaborator crew, and the stylistic basis for Collaborator's Extropia was born--a spare, functional world, devoid of frills, colorful outbursts, and apparently all sorts of other good stuff, including, of course, music.
The not-seen-every-day plot revolves around the adventures of Foster, a shoe-factory worker played with nimble precision, energy, and warmth by Miszklevitz (potentially one of my new favorite local actors). He's ostensibly your average Extropian joe--hardworking, loyal, dull as dishwater. However, Foster's heretofore simply "sufficient" (as Extropians like to say) neural network spontaneously musters up the muscle necessary to recognize acoustic pattern and rhythm (i.e., music) amid random, everyday sounds. The resulting epiphany sets his heart a-leaping, his toes a-tapping, and his grin a-grinnin' as a sensual new world of auditory magic opens before him. Of course he, and everyone else, thinks he's gone apeshit--but to reveal any more of the plot would do a disservice to both the show and the hordes of theatergoers who should be lining up to see it.
"We hope to continue refining and developing it, moving it toward future incarnations," says McQuilken.
"What's important about this group of artists is that they have truly collaborated to create this work," adds Soikowski. "No one person's vision was more or less important--everyone came to the table with great ideas. That's how this marvelous show was built."
