Lost in Space

X – Sideshow Theatre

It’s haunted house season again. As Halloween approaches, all over Chicagoland the scary habitats are popping up everywhere. The holiday has turned into a month-long celebration of all things eerie, just as Autumn begins to nip the air. But in this latest Chicago production by British playwright Alistair McDowall, known for such unsettling dramas as “Brilliant Adventures” and “Pomona,” he’s created a new kind of haunted house. Tension builds as ghostly apparitions appear and ominous events occur. Strange sights and sounds torment and terrify the crew as the astronauts and the audience find themselves helplessly lost in space.

Billions of miles from earth, at the furthest frontier of our solar system, five astronauts have been coexisting for months—perhaps years—in a space module research base on Pluto. They’ve been waiting for a rescue mission to arrive and bring them back to earth. But hope is slowly dwindling away. The relationship between the crew members is wearing thin and patience has completely run out. But something else has gone wrong. The digital clock has stopped working properly. Time and reality become strangely out of joint and are severely altered. Without sunlight, the landscape turns into one long night. There’s nothing for the crew, or the audience, to grab ahold of and the endless chronology has folded back onto itself. There’s nothing left for this band of brothers and sisters to rely upon except technology, and even that has gone amuck.

Jonathan L. Green has done a fine job of directing McDowall’s tension-filled drama. The cast, led by the excellent Sarah Price, as Gilda, the mission’s second-in-command officer, is very good. Seen in the Goodman’s “The Wolves” and Steep Theatre’s “Earthquakes in London,” Ms. Price is great at portraying a woman who’s slowly unraveling before our eyes. She deals with  her stress and boredom by obsessively eating cereal and chewing on her own hair. Gage Wallace, a standout actor who’s been enjoyed in Strawdog’s “Pillars of the Community” and First Floor’s “Mike Pence Sex Dream,” is terrific as Clark. This eccentric character who, after spending so much time with his crew mates, sees nothing wrong in hanging out in his underwear. He enjoys defying Gilda’s orders and annoying his team mates  with his verbal bantering. Watching this man come unglued is remarkable and chilling.

Krystal Ortiz, who recently appeared at Griffin Theatre in “For Services Rendered,” and in “Lettie” at Victory Gardens, is charming and appropriately sassy and feisty as Mattie; H.B. Ward, a regular performer at A Red Orchid Theater, brings a gruff, gloomy demeanor to haunted veteran astronaut, Ray; and, as Cole, the scientist who finds solace in mathematics, Nate Wheldon creates a commanding character who’s jittery and strung out by the odd and ominous occurrences aboard the space vehicle. Listed as The Voice,” young Natalie Ortega adds her own air of spookiness to this production.

The actors provide the words and emotions in Green’s production, but the real stars of this presentation are his technical team. Y Shibagaki has designed a sparse, sterile, white-and-chrome space module that looks sleek and appropriately futuristic. An eerie soundtrack, designed by Michael Huey, some pretty astounding lighting effects, by Jordan Kardasz, and the jaw-dropping projections of Paul Deziel, all really enhance this production. Noel Huntzinger’s costumes are, like the set, simple but appropriate to the story.

Alistair McDowall’s 2016 drama has all the earmarks of a haunted house horror story. People see things and hear sounds and voices that go bump in the night. Essentially, this is a psychological drama, like The Turn of the Screw, in which the characters are pitted against their own demons, as well as what  haunts the others around them. Similar to Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None,” the five characters are trapped together and, one-by-one, as the tension builds, each of them meets his demise. In addition, the playwright offers a frightening, dystopian tale that predicts the end of the world. Like this crew of helpless astronauts, theatergoers will find themselves powerless, unprotected and lost in space.

Recommended

Reviewed by Colin Douglas  

Presented September 22-October 27 by Sideshow Theatre Company at the Richard Christiansen theatre at the Victory Gardens Theatre, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago.

Tickets are available at the box office, by calling 773-871-3000 or by going to www.victorygardens.org.

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