Cristin Milioti in Zoe Kazan’s After the Blast
It’s a brave new post-1984 world that Zoe Kazan has devised in After the Blast, the new entry in Lincoln Center Theater’s LCT3 series. Unlike in those mid-twentieth century Orwellian and Huxleyian regimes, Kazan’s society is not overrun by mind control or violence; it is simply a modern-day and not altogether unfounded reaction to our nuclear society. Hence, after the blast.
Given the subject and title, one might expect something other than what we get, which is an intriguing, engaging, and laugh-laced philosophical discourse with heart. Anna (Cristin Milioti), a writer who is not unreasonably unmotivated and depressed, lives with her scientist-husband Oliver (William Jackson Harper) in 33-9D-AW, which is the thirty-third unit of the ninth division of the American West. As Kazan allows her story to gradually unfold, we learn that they are second-generation members of a society developed underground after—well, the titular explosion.
The plot centers around the couple’s efforts to have a child, or rather “receive their fertility.” (Everything around here is SIMmed, it seems, as in “last weekend we SIMmed a day at the beach.”) Anna’s friend Carrie (Eboni Booth) is very much pregnant, and she and husband Patrick (Ben Horner) do indeed become parents. But our concentration is wholly on Anna, whose hopes and dreams are mostly of one day seeing the earth and sky above. The back wall of the couple’s living unit is taken up with a vibrant screen showing various mood-setting/pacifying views of mountain, sky and running brook. Think super-wide, super-lustrous screen-saver.
Looking to occupy Anna’s time and imagination, Oliver applies for a home-assistance robot (that is, HELPER 1.3). Anna unwillingly sets out to “socialize” it as a companion for one of the increasing number of children born without sight in this underground society. Genetics, you know. Arthur, as Anna anoints the machine, is little more than a metal canister at first. With training, though, he/it becomes quite a character.
(Does anyone here remember Rosie, the housekeeper robot in the animated 1962 series The Jetsons, which itself seemed derived from the great Shirley Booth in the non-animated 1961 series Hazel? Seems like Ms. Kazan, the actress/playwright who was born in 1983 into an illustrious showbiz family, does; and if you’re going to be inspired, might as well choose wisely.)
Will Connolly, Cristin Milioti and William Jackson Harper in Zoe Kazan’s After the Blast
Arthur provides a cannister full of laughs, yes; but he serves as not only a canny expository device—with Anna filling him in with knowledge and backstory—but as an emotional center of the play as well. It all works out extremely well for Ms. Kazan, if not necessarily for Anna and Arthur. Extremely well for the audience, too.
Milioti, who rose to prominence in Once and then went West to undertake the title role in How I Met Your Mother, does wonderfully as the desperate housewife. She plays well opposite Harper as her strained husband; and brightens as her relationship with Arthur blossoms. (I suppose it must be challenging, or at least unusual, to interact in dramatic and comic scenes with a metal can. Especially when said metal can gets big laughs.) Harper does a strong job as the scientific husband burdened with geological state secrets, while the others contribute to the overall strange mood. Providing droll humor in two speaking roles is Will Connolly, formerly one of Milioti’s guitar-playing Czech compatriots in Once.
The play has been smartly directed by Lila Neugebauer, who has been lately zooming to prominence with Annie Baker’s Antipodes, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Everybody, and Abe Koogler’s Kill Floor (at LCT3). Not to mention Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves, which has been thoroughly sold out in its first two productions and is being remounted next month at the Mitzi Newhouse. (And whatever you do, don’t miss it this time!)
Cristin Milioti and “Arthur” in Zoe Kazan’s After the Blast
Daniel Zimmerman (of Kill Floor) provides a perfectly-contrived bunker apartment; and it seems fitting that we salute prop man Noah Mease, who is apparently the genius behind the robotic helper. Who/which is quite a stage-worthy technical marvel. Although now that I think of it, Arthur does comport himself in the same manner as my new, autopilot vacuum cleaner.
The LCT3 production of Zoe Kazan’s “After the Blast” opened October 23, 2017 and continues through November 19 at the Claire Tow Theater