Tyler Perez and Zachary Bones (Photo by Joey Solano)
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Moving Arts
Through November 20
In Reset, a new play by Howard Ho, a 20-something man at loose ends with his life is drawn into an experiment whose aim is nothing less than uncovering the premeditated (or not!) workings of the Universe. Wordy and weighed down with fictive sci-fi lingo and plotting, it gains traction as a moderately entertaining black comedy under Darin Anthony’s direction.
The play is set in a deactivated chamber of the infamous Chernobyl reactor (precariously surrounded by toxic gases kept out by special walls designed for that purpose). Jim (Tyler Perez) has responded to an ad that promises to help experiment participants become their best selves. He arrives at the site indignant, after having been transported to the facility in the trunk of a car by a crew of venison-munching Eastern Europeans. Once there, he’s greeted by a physicist, Dr. Lateen Anderson (Zachary Bones), something of a pontifical blowhard, and a behavioral psychologist, Dr. Aiko Tanaka (Greta Jung), an attractive woman with a chilly manner who’s given to furious note-taking.
After receiving a brief lecture on Schrodinger’s cat and the enigma of multiple possibilities it represents, Jim is guided through a series of confrontations with various versions of himself as they manifest 34 years into the future. These personages (four, all played by Carl Weintraub) appear to Jim from behind an impenetrable glass cage; they include a totally down-and-out unfocused homeless guy and the successful writer Jim has always dreamed of becoming. Through the glass he interacts with them all until the final version of his mature self precipitates the play’s incendiary climax.
Perez, his character thrust into chaotic cockamamie straits, does an excellent job of keeping it real, thus anchoring a flighty story. Anderson’s pompous physicist leans into caricature and could use more heft, while Jung’s Aiko, perfunctory at the start, becomes more interesting as the narrative heats up. Weintraub lends dramatic presence to his progressively disturbing harbingers of the future.
At an hour and 40 minutes and with no intermission, the script could benefit from pruning — but Anthony does keeps the pace moving and successfully supports the actors as they underscore the comic ironies within their characters. Justin Huen’s scenic and lighting design and the purposefully disruptive sound (playwright Ho) together generate the appropriate weirdness for this talky and rather non-portentous piece of sci-fi.
Moving Arts, 3191 Casitas Ave., Atwater. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 6 pm, Mon., 8 pm; thru Nov. 20. https://movingarts.org/project/reset-23/. Running time One hour and 40 minutes, no intermission.
