Sheldon Brown (Adams) & Louise Hamill (Talia). Photo by E. Milanovich Photography
Presented by Fresh Ink Theatre
Written by Patrick Gabridge
Directed by Liz Fenstermaker
December 5 – 13, 2014
Boston Playwrights Theatre
949 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA
Fresh Ink on Facebook
Review by Gillian Daniels
Fresh Ink Theatre’s Distant Neighbors hits at the heart of what the best science fiction is about: people reacting to technological advancement. If you read (or watch the film adaption of) Jurassic Park, you’re not just consuming entertainment to see how people create dinosaurs, but how people react to creating dinosaurs. Similarly, the characters of Distant Neighbors react to a change in an intimate environment. Here, however, the source of upheaval is the wing of an apparent spacecraft that comes crashing down into the backyards of Adams (Sheldon Brown), Talia (Louise Hamill), and Griffin (Daniel Boudreau), three neighbors who know nothing about each other. It’s a wonderful starting point for a story about intimacy and paranoia, but I’m not sure it pans out well.
