PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A mutant walrus, a blackberry plant, and talking bacteria walk into a room…for a community meeting.
This is the premise of “Other Orbits,” an installation play by Philadelphia queer theater collective, Applied Mechanics.
“The piece takes place on a distant planet, where a group of aliens and mutants, and talking plants and sentient technologies, that have descended from a long ago human colony, are having their, like, annual meeting,” says director Rebecca Wright. “Kind of like a student council meeting, but for a whole planet.”
The meeting is an attempt for a diverse group of beings to solve their society’s problems together, in a way that benefits everyone.
“The play is really asking, like, what can we do in a group?” Wright says. “How possible is it to operate in a collective? What are the limitations of that? … How can we transform together? And how can we connect across our differences?”
The interactive performance allows audiences to consider how this group of aliens reflects our own society, while moving through different scenes happening at the same time.
“You're invited to inhabit this world,” says Wright. “The characters will sometimes talk to you as if you're a member of that world. But you also are a witness in that world.”
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Some may choose to simply sit and watch the meeting, but you could also journey through what Wright calls a “hall of nations” to learn about different alien traditions, like a dance that you can learn from a mushroom-walrus-mutant.
This play is the final piece in a multimedia series that Applied Mechanics has released online and by mail. The characters of “Other Orbits” have made an album of music, radio broadcasts, an activity packet, a time capsule, and an episode of reality TV, among other things.
Wright says part of the goal is to make this story more accessible.
“If you're not able to…listen to a play in a room where there are lots of things going on, maybe you can listen to the album on your headphones,” she says. “Maybe you can have the time capsule, which is kind of a piece of mail art, delivered to your home, and you can have a tabletop play of your own.”
The venue for the live show, Standby Stages in Kensington, has wheelchair access and parking on site, and a recording of the performance will also be released in the fall for those who are unable to participate in person.
The play runs from July 9-22. More information, tickets, and all of the previous episodes are available on Applied Mechanics’ website.
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