22 years in the future, two lab assistants hatch a plan that could change the world. All they need are a few volunteers. A raucous and provocative world premiere by Kate Douglas about sacrifice, ambition, and honeybees, directed by Kate Whoriskey (Clyde’s).
That’s the setup, if nowhere near the payoff, of the “The Apiary,” a bright, strange and mesmerizing marvel by Kate Douglas, making her professional playwriting debut with this Off Off Broadway production. Unlike most such debuts, though, “The Apiary,” which opened on Tuesday at Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theater, is receiving a nearly perfect, first-class staging under the almost too good direction of Kate Whoriskey.
Science fiction may be a natural fit for movies and TV, where budgets allow CGI world-building and eye-popping F/X, but the genre flourishes in humbler forms of storytelling. Caryl Churchill probed the existential horror behind cloning in A Number and Jordan Harrison walked the uncanny valley with aide-mémoire androids in Marjorie Prime. Where does The Apiary rank among futuristic stage work? In Kate Douglas’s dark farce set a persnickety 22 years from now, bee populations are shrinking (even more) due to climate change. A pair of technicians who run a synthetic apiary think they’ve found a solution. But it’s going to take a lot of human corpses. The scientific stakes are fairly high—Earth is, um, dying—but after 75 minutes of tonal wobble, you may flit from Second Stage Theatre with little to buzz about.
2024 | Off-Broadway |
Second Stage Off-Broadway Premiere Production Off-Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | The Lortels | Outstanding Featured Performer in a Play | Carmen M. Herlihy |
Videos