Review: THE LAST SHOW ON EARTH at ERA

It’s a wildly exciting, brilliantly off-beat and imaginative evening of exploration into an echoingly deep topic that has teased philosophers and divines for millennia.  In our days that topic teases the brightest brains in physics and astrophysics.   It’s eschatology—the study of the End of the World!

Lucy Cashion’s ERA company has opened The Last Show on Earth at the Kranzberg.  This profound and hilarious piece was written by Joe Taylor, Cashion’s long-time collaborator in ERA projects.  Cashion is a young professor at St. Louis University, and her ERA company has been presenting truly experimental theater for a dozen years or so.

We enter the theater, we see four desks with venetian blinds between them and the audience.  Actors at the desks occasionally peek through the blinds at us.  (Well, we will be watching them all night.)

Now deep science is not unheard of on theatrical stages.  Some years ago Michael Frayn (of Noises Off fame) wrote Copenhagen, a play about nuclear physics and those human geniuses immersed in it.  Well, playwright Joe Taylor, in an illustrated curtain speech, describes what we’re about to examine:  the history and final end of all things.  In the gazillions of years between the Big Bang and the Heat Death of the Universe (where all is luke-warmish and no thermodynamic activity is possible) human existence is an insignificant speck.  We WILL go extinct! 

But here we are, engaged in a life-or-death struggle with Artificial Intelligence.  AI is designed to mimic in silicon those electron tricks which dance around the neurons in our biological brains.  Is it possible that “human” thought in AI could long survive the extinction of us humans?

The cast is full of ERA veterans.  Ashwini Arora, Will Bonfiglio, Maggie Conroy, Miranda Felix, Marty Rubright, Rachel Tibbits, as well as playwright Taylor himself.  An on-stage duo, Sam Golden (keyboard, guitar) and Dustin Sholtes (percussion, melodica) keeps things lively—and sometimes chaotic.  Joe Taylor occasionally plays the keyboard.  He also composed the music.

As in all ERA productions there is a strong element of movement—even dance.  Even the frequent movement of furniture is carefully choreographed—sometimes slow and mysterious, sometimes rushed and frantic.  There is a chorus line. 

Bright dabs of mockery and satire splash around.  There is a law firm where not only the partners, but seemingly every employee is named “Murphy”.  There is a fiercely sharp satire on gun advocacy in a skit where a roaming tiger has eaten a number of middle school kids.  To anyone urging better tiger-control the die-hards cling to ‘tiger rights” and claim “the answer to a bad tiger is a good tiger!”

In one disturbing scene we see one woman consoling another who has experienced a family tragedy.  Their deeply touching exchange is gradually drowned out by a rising chorus of the robo-voices of self-checkout devices bluntly demanding “put the item in your bag”. 

There is much use of projections.  Video cameras are brought in from time to time so we see actors simultaneously live and in projection—sometimes in an endless line of reflected images. 

A number of other performers—ERA regulars and fellow-travelers—appear in the marvelously produced video segments, which are also the work of Joe Taylor.  These take us to the mythical town of Parson Mills, of which Will Bonfiglio is the buoyant, smiling mayor.   We see the downtown with its cute baby shops, we see the wonderful new water park.  These are done superbly—as if on a Hollywood sound set.  We see very tempting commercials for Waiting for Godot: the Musical.   

One wonders if Mr. Taylor might have used AI to help him with these “deep fakes”.  (Talk about sleeping with the enemy!)

Everywhere we are reminded that all of this is sponsored by Scrum, a mega-corporation whose motto is “Never not together”.

There is a great heap of talk, overlapping talk, a riot of talk, and a monologue that pours out so fast it would put the Modern Major General to shame.

There is insanity, there is inanity, but throughout there is some deep thought underneath.

As the universe ends the stage is stripped, all is swept away, rugs are taken up, pictures ripped down.  Maggie Conroy delivers a strange, ethereal goodbye monologue—or aria. 

And then we find ourselves among artificial humans at a – what?  A cocktail party?  Well, it’s only for 38-year-olds.  They flounderingly attempt to behave as humans.  They try to play charades—but each of them already knows the answer.   A stand-up comic explains the mechanism of a joke.  It’s as unfunny as Freud’s chapters on humor, but her robot audience dutifully laughs.

When AI was first introduced each of us consumers was put in touch with an artificial personality—a bespoke personality, tailored in exquisite detail to match our every need and interest and whim.  We are rapidly becoming fonder and fonder of these pseudo-people.  These soulless beings will soon become our only true soul-mates.     

At the end of the play all these AI bots have survived human extinction by a million eons, yet they still pathetically try to behave like humans.  It seems they are lonely for their long, long, long, long-lost human friends.  Weren’t the robots, too, promised “never not together”?

Every member of the cast (and crew) shows utter commitment to the play and remarkable discipline.  That’s another recurring trait in Lucy Cashion’s work.

The very flexible set is designed by Ms. Cashion and Denisse Chavez.  Ms. Chavez designed (and executes) the nimble and dramatic lighting plot.  The varied and often exotic costumes are by Meredith LaBounty.  (At one point the band appears with shiny fancy silver hats—probably mylar, but let’s pretend they are appropriately tinfoil.)

It’s all-in-all a marvelous show!   A very fitting way for the world to end.

If you enjoy stepping beyond mere entertainment or sentiment in a play, you should not miss ERA’s production of The Last Show in the World.  It’s invigorating!  It’s rejuvenating!

It plays at the Kranzberg through September 26.

Reader Reviews

To post a comment, you must register and login.