The Annihilation Point
BOTTOM LINE: A funny and original spoof of science fiction movies featuring audience interaction.
Imagine a goofy, good natured mash-up of "Pee-wee's Playhouse" and "Mystery Science Theater 3000," with touches of Ed Wood and Monty Python, and you'll start to get the feel for The Annihilation Point, a comic romp created and performed by the Philadelphia theater collective The Berserker Residents. BR's inspired brand of silliness is the result of collaboration and a shared taste for alternative live comedy that draws on audience interaction. "Because madness was made for sharing."
The interaction begins in the lobby of the Abrons Arts Center where the audience is divided (without explanation) into groups Z and B. The two groups are led separately by Hazmat-suited guides through a maze of hallways and "decontamination chambers" into a theater made to look like the control room of a spaceship. The Abrons's concrete bunker construction provides the perfect ambience for BR's low tech, high concept humor. The sets, props and costumes are zany and ingenious.
The tone is established immediately by the blond, breezily heroic Astronaut Z (Bradley K. Wrenn) as one of a playful and affectionate spoof on sci-fi movies. I didn't follow all of the pseudo-scientific nonsense about the Annihilation Point itself, an event predicted for December 12, 2012 in which humanity would be destroyed. But I understood enough to know that we the audience, called "candidates," had to be saved from this cataclysmic event by Z and his cohorts Lt. Gregory Tamborsky (Justin Jain) and Dr. Robert Doomstache (Dave Johnson.) Were we ready to make the leap? Frequent audience scans by the sexy, disembodied voice of "Mrs. Computer" (Genevieve Perrier) revealed that we most definitely were not. Would our three saviors be able to rescue us from utter devastation or would we all be killed? Suffice to say the suspense was palpable until the very last moment.
Wrenn, Jain and Johnson have an obvious chemistry and a shared affinity for their mutually created material. Tim Sawicki is listed as "collaborating playwright" on the consistently amusing script. My favorite of the three charming performers was Johnson, whose dry, precise delivery and quick, skillful shifts of tone made me laugh throughout.
I did find myself wondering what would happen if The Berserker Residents were to infuse their work with a bit more satire, or even subversiveness. Their mission is essentially comic, but it's already challenging the boundaries of theater and live performance. Even Pee-wee's childish humor contains a subtle sense of rebellion against established norms of morality and propriety. The Berserker Residents are onto something. Let's hope they keep it up, and bring it back to New York before—or maybe just in time for the Apocalypse.
(The Annihilation Point runs through January 16, 2011 at The Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street, at the corner of Pitt Street. Performance times vary. The Abrons Arts Center accessible from the F train to Delancey, the J or M trains to Essex or the D or B trains to Grand Street. Tickets are $15, available at 212.352.3101 or theatremania.com.)