Theatre Review: Bottle Alley Theatre Company’s Trash Planet
Hell is not other people, but can we find heaven within them?
Reviewed by Cat McCarrey, Fri., Aug. 23, 2024
Thomas Moore’s Utopia always sounded boring. A perfect world, with perfect people, no conflict or angst? Why should we care? On the flip side, dystopian tales are rich in setting and all the good drama, but sometimes lack a sustaining hope.
Enter the eternal optimism in Bottle Alley Theatre Company’s Trash Planet, which presents a barren world filled with galactic trash – including seven humans booted through the ominous “Wormhole of Justice.” They are Earth convicts improbably alive and trapped on the planetary equivalent of that floating patch of garbage in the ocean. These captivating seven, whose crimes run the gamut in terms of severity, strive to find their way back to Earth while simply surviving the desolate elements and, sometimes, even each other.
It’s an immersive world with the aesthetics of Mad Max and the tight-knit ensemble of Joss Whedon’s short-lived space Western Firefly. The performance space, a warehouse perfectly lit with slight haze by Gavin Kenter, houses impressive piles of foraged garbage. Remnants of shopping carts and exercise equipment line the walls, an incredible array of actual discarded items. Scenic designer Cody Arn and costume designer Remy Joslin deftly present a futuristic survival landscape. The mountains of refuse complement costumes that truly pop – quite literally sometimes, as is the case of bubble-wrap elbow- and kneepads – with touches of found garbage. Each costume is an “I Spy” of details: soda can tabs on shirts, jean jackets from actual jeans, and grocery bag sock garters.
This is my second time checking out Bottle Alley, and so far I’ve noticed a unique ability to cast astoundingly human thespians. There’s not a weak performance in the bunch. These wayward criminals are vibrant, beautiful, bursting with life. Even the most affected roles, like that of Teeny (Madi Luebbers), who was chucked through the wormhole as an infant and now takes on the girliest adolescence, emanates sweetness that somehow keeps from cloying audience arteries. It’s simple and understandable. Such are the choices from the rest of the cast, their characters eccentric but thumpingly down-to-earth (despite, you know, being up in the universe).
The roles are as archetypal as Dungeons & Dragons characters: the Fighter, the Scientist, the Teacher, the Forager, the Child, the Searcher, and the Skeptic. That final role is Maribel (Joanna Gunaraj), who sets the play in motion as the latest castoff from Earth’s justice system. She’s new enough to need initiation into Trash Planet norms. But she’s also fresh enough to remember why Earth isn’t perfect. To remember the reasons she was cast out and why it may not be worth returning.
Along the way, we see each character relitigate their past. They share their sordid histories and their fears for a future on the other side of the galactic wormhole. They help each other survive, not just in body but in mind. The Teacher, Jasmine (Madison Laird), cares for Teeny’s education with hopes that she’s “preparing her for a better world.” On the other hand, de facto leader and Fighter, Ma (Meredith O’Brien), just hopes they can all “prepare for the real world.” The Scientist, Cam (Brennan Patrick), works to reverse engineer the wormhole like his life actually depends on it. And Julia’s Searcher (Katy Matz) – all sweet and sour, the bratty older sister and coolest girl you know – works to find something that proves her usefulness. Meanwhile, Critter (played with infectious joy by N.R. Oglesby), the Forager, heartens them all by crafting tales around each foraged piece of trash, weaving hope and magic in this bleak world. It’s myth-making at its finest.
That’s what director/playwright Marian Kansas’ script feels like. A myth in the making, the kind of origin flashpoint that could fascinate society for generations. Alone, it’s an intensely satisfying chronicle of the group on this world, a tense telling of their quest for escape with rich characterization and emotional plot beats. But it’s easy to travel down mental side quests with each role. You want to dwell on the unwritten histories of their previous life on Earth. You want to continue with them toward what lies ahead. To tease apart how their reliance on each other shapes their futures.
The need for community isn’t moored to a single time and place. It exists in an intergalactic wasteland. It existed throughout history. And it exists now, as Trash Planet so remarkably reminds us. As long as there are other people, we have reason to carry on.
Trash Planet
Through Aug. 25
