Is There Life on Mars?

How to Live on Earth – Chimera Ensemble

The key of science fiction is the question “What if?” What if we had flying cars? What if we met aliens? What if we could transfer our brains to robot bodies? Sometimes the questions are small changes; sometimes they are seismic shifts. The best science fiction explores not just the technological marvels themselves, but the impact on people and their relationships. Chimera Ensemble’s new production “How to Live on Earth” is a great example of that. Focusing on four people all trying for the opportunity to be picked for a one-way mission to colonize Mars, we get to meet not just the aspiring astronauts, but the people and lives they’ll be leaving behind.

Over the course of the show, we learn that some of these people will make it and some will not. Regardless of whether or not they do, there are lasting impacts for all their relationships. For those who go, their families know they will never see these people again, beyond an occasional and hopefully functional Skype call. For those who stay, they are left wondering why their loved ones wanted to go in the first place, and whether they can live with the knowledge they may forever be their loved one’s second choice.

The cast is uniformly good, achieving something vital to good drama generally, and good science fiction in particular: a comfortable and recognizable humanity. I’m really only going to care about the aliens or the spaceships or the robots if the people populating the story are ones I can relate to, and up and down the line, every had an unforced quality that I really enjoyed.

At 90 minutes with no intermission, the story functions like a short story, a format ideally suited to science fiction. If you dig in too deep into the premise, you may start to see the seams of the story. Why would such an important mission be staffed by essentially the same process as American Idol? Wouldn’t they just pick a group of gifted scientists with no ties on Earth for obvious reasons? But because of the short run time, those are questions that really only bubble up after the show. In the moment, How to Live on Earth is a charming and interesting meditation on ambition and the search for a sense of belonging.

After seeing the show, I wondered at the kind of person who would sign up for a one-way mission. I wondered what it must be like to be put in the limbo of functionally mourning someone who isn’t technically dead yet, or what it must be like to be next to someone, knowing at least some part of them will always be a million miles away. Like all good science fiction, it made me wonder, “What if…?”

Highly Recommended

Review by Kevin Curran

Presented March 8 – March 24 by the Chimera Ensemble at the Pentagon Theater at Collobaraction Studios at 1579 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago.

Tickets are available at www.chimeraensemble.com.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.