Anna Considers Mars
Ruben Grijalva
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| Melissa Ortiz, Katie Rubin, Aaron Wilton & Christian Haines |
The polar ice caps are no more. Fiji has disappeared; San Francisco is
surrounded by a gigantic seawall. From
sharks to lions, species are going extinct in the wild while decades-long
droughts send desperate throngs to attack arriving planes as people look for
food. In such a world, Anna is one of
millions who has applied to be among the forty Adams and Eves who will be sent
to Mars to ensure the human race continues after the now-inevitable, eventual
demise of the earth; and she just received a virtual message on the screen on
her glasses that she is a semi-finalist for one of the “golden tickets.” But if she leaves, what will happen to
Barbara the Pacific March Mantis, to Tom, the Western Giant Marsh Bug, or to
other “uncharismatic species” (i.e., ugly creatures no one cares about) that
she is trying to save from their extinction?
And what about her cancer-ridden, bothersome mom, Renata, who stubbornly
won’t die?
In Ruben Gijalva’s Anna
Considers Mars – a play part science fiction, part hilarious comedy with a
dark streak, part family drama – Anna faces the possibility of a life-long
dream to go to Mars while bumping up against a host of moral dilemmas here on
earth. Anna also sees a chance to escape
a world where “everyday someone is having the worst day of their life” (i.e.,
often her, it seems) to a new world where maybe just the opposite might occur –
especially for her. Now in its world
premiere as part of the 23rd Annual Playground Festival of New
Works, Anna Considers Mars is a
crazy, compelling, complicated, and comedic view of where we may be headed,
given the climate change that of course is not really happening (according to
our President and large parts of current society).
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| Wilma Bonet & Melissa Ortiz |
For Anna Aguirre, this obsession to go to Mars began as a
young girl when she dressed as an astronaut and started screaming in a kid
melt-down to her videoing mother that “I’m going to Mars,” and “I’m taking all
the kiddies and the doggies.” With a few
edits, suddenly Renata Aguirre has a video that becomes a viral, monster hit
with over 200 million followers. Ever
since, the world has known Anna as “The Mars Kid” – a moniker that maybe has
helped her to be chosen as a possible Mars pioneer by the Mars Exploration Program,
founded by mega-millionaire and entrepreneur Shelley Lawrence.
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| Melissa Ortiz & Aaron Wilton |
Anna has not actually met Shelley; she receives virtual
messages from her through the glasses she wears – glasses that all humans now
wear close to 24X7 that allow them to filter how others see them in their own
glasses (much better than our current Photoshopping to clear up pimples and
wrinkles). Through her glasses, Anna
receives reminders, messages, and even advice from her virtual assistant,
chosen by her to be a formally dressed in white gloves Brit named Carson
(played delightfully in full English dignity by Søren Oliver). Her mother’s chosen assistant is a half-naked,
pretty boy who calls her Queen (one of many roles that Aaron Wilton is called
upon to portray, from creepy bugs to Anna’s lonely ex to a cute but amoral
doctor to an even-more-naked, primate-wanna-be named Ishmael in dreadlocks).
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| Aaron Wilson, Katie Rubin & Wilma Bonet |
Melissa Ortiz exceptionally captures a unique set of
characteristics that define Anna’s complex, sometimes contradictory
personality. Much of the time, Anna is
doggedly persistent to obtain what she wants from others. Using her nasally,
half-irritating voice that has a sharp edge always ready to attack others’
resistances, she pushes potential funders to see the merits of banking the
survival of a disgusting species that eats its own feces. Similarly, she searches for her mother’s
hidden vaping cigs while demanding she follow doctor’s orders or face losing
all Bingo privileges – a game Renata plays constantly with her quirky, virtual
friends. But behind all that outward
armor and ready to battle anyone against what she knows should be done, Anna
has deep threads of insecurities and uncertainties – aspects Melissa Ortiz
masterfully unveils as the story progresses.
Anna also has her own desires and attractions, especially
for a potential funder for Tom the Marsh bug – a life-long admirer named
Malcolm Phillips (a genuinely likeable, good-hearted Christian Haines). As a kid, Malcolm became enthralled with the
rampant videos of “The Mars Kid” and has had ever since on his “bucket list” to
one day have a date with her.
Their meeting while she is asking for big bucks from his
company for poor, hideous-looking Tom leads both having an unexpected adventure
in the bedroom. But their meeting also leads Anna to a major, ethical decision
and a humongous, moral dilemma –
decisions and dilemmas that involve Tom the Bug, Renalta the Mom, Darryl the
Ex, Malcolm the Surprise, and Mars the Golden Ticket.
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| Wilma Bonet & Melissa Ortiz |
Not making it easy in any of the tough decisions Anna
one-by-one has to make is her mother who suffers from cancer (whom Anna in a
slip refers to as “my cancerous mother”).
Their relationship is knotty at best and evidently has been so from the
moment Renata ordered in vitro a girl baby with a big heart – a daughter she
was sure would take care of her in her old age. But then there was the time she
considered abandoning for a life in Fiji (actually a good thing she did not,
given Fiji is now underwater). For us as
third-party observers of their mother-daughter struggles, Wilma Bonet’s Renata
is a wonderfully entertaining combination of hilarious, endearing, eccentric,
and pain-in-the-ass.
Like Aaron Wilton, Katie Rubin assumes a variety of
quick-change parts during the two-hour evening (plus a fifteen-minute
intermission). As Shelley Lawrence, she
is all business and a Mars-bound celeb.
As Dorothy, she is a chatty Presbyterian with a heavy Minnesota accent
who got the call from God to leave her husband and go to Mars. And those are just two of her several
appearances of widely varying personalities.
San Francisco Playhouse’s Susi Damilano joins this
Playground team to direct Anna Considers
Mars, bringing a full-on sense of humor – deliciously warped a bit a times
– and an ability to capture the exasperating but also heart-wrenching struggle
between a daughter and a mother who each are torn between personal
desires/needs and those of the other.
Brooke Jennings has a heyday with costume design, given the crawling
creatures and equally-as-strange people – real and virtual – that show up in
the course of the story. Brittany
Mellerson’s lighting takes us from desert brightness to hospital equanimity and
much in between while the sound design of Ian Walker provides
future-appropriate music and virtual-world sound effects to enhance the
director’s and playwright’s vision.
As in most world premieres – especially one that is packed
with a myriad of peeks of what the world may be like near its own, self-made extinction
– there are some points where Ruben Grijalva’s script introduces incidents as
well as characters and virtual entities that seem somewhat extraneous to the
core storyline. There are times one
cannot help scratch one’s head with a “Huh?” but even then, there is usually a
laugh coming that is well-deserved.
Ruben Grijalva’s Anna
Considers Mars covers much ground in this engagingly excellent premiere through
the points made about where such current topics as virtual reality, medical
advancements, and climate change may eventually lead us. But just as important, the play reminds us
that some issues – like those of family obligations versus personal dreams –
are universal, timeless, and damn difficult to resolve.
Rating: 4.5 E
Anna Considers Mars
continues through June 16, 2019 as part of Playground’s 2019 New Works
Festival, playing on the following times and dates: 8 p.m. June 1, 2, 6, 13,
and 16; 2 p.m. June 2, 8 and 16.
Performances are at the Potrero Stage, 1695 18th Street, San
Francisco. Tickets are available online
at www.playground-sf.org.
Photo Credits: Mellophoto.com
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