Octet, by Dave Malloy, opened at Crow’s Theatre on Wednesday evening.  I guess it’s Crow’s big musical this year; a kind of follow up to Pierre, Natasha and the Great Comet, but it’s actually a very different kind of show.  One major difference is musical.  All the singing is a capella which puts extra demands on the singers (and isn’t unpleasantly loud).  The whole cast; eight of course, are really rather good singers and pull off the solo and ensemble numbers extremely well.  They can also act and they are backed up by a really effective lighting plot Imogen Wilson) and video (Nathan Bruce) that pretty much replace the set, which is pretty basic.

The problem I have with the piece is the libretto.  The cast plays a support group for internet addicts.  It has all the attributes of twelve step programmes except maybe demanding acceptance of a “higher power”; confessional statements, soppy “hymns” and what not.  It did also have an interesting tea ceremony that induced temporary coma.  I did though find the emphasis on the main problem being created by ordinary internet users a bit galling.  Unless I missed it there was scarcely a mention of how the monetisation of the internet has allowed a handful of fascist billionaires to take over the ‘net and now, it seems, the United States.  As a long-time netizen (back tot he days of dial up and Usenet) I’ve seen how commercial (and malign political) interests have steadily driven the ‘net away from more or less thoughtful engagement based on the written word to sound bites, retweets, “followers” and the like.

So in Malloy’s mind there’s no solution.  Our brains have already been rewired, our attention span and ability to think coherently for periods of time have been destroyed and generative AI will only make things worse.  No suggestion that politicians with spines and some proper regulation might have some potential.  There is no hope.  End of rant.

To be fair, some of the material is more interesting than someone describing their addiction to candy themed video games.  Marvin (played by Ben Carlson, an actor who consistently impresses) went on a fascinating rant about an eleven year old mermaid claiming to be God appearing to him ands his lab of neuroscientists.  It was a thought provoking inversion of the idea that anything sufficiently technologically advanced will appear to be magic.  To Marvin, anything “magic” can be explained away by imagining a sufficiently advanced technology!

The cast is uniformly excellent.  Besides Carlson we have Damien Atkins, Alicia Ault, Andrew Broderick, Hailey Gillis, Zorana Sadiq, Jacqueline Thair and Giles Tomkins (yes, that one).  They work well individually and collectively and Chris Abrahams direction is crisp and keeps the pace up.  It’s all highly professional and technically good theatre.  I’m just not sure it can redeem a flawed and, frankly, dangerous basic premise.  YMMV.

Octet continues at Crow’s Theatre until October 19th.

Photo credit: Dahlia Katz.