Review: WOMEN OF 4G at State University Theatre

Women Of 4G playing at the Fishback Studio at the Performing Arts Center at SDSU in Brookings, is a play that was written by Amy Tofte, a native of Brookings, SD. That fact alone, was impetus for me to travel on a frigid Wednesday night to see an opening night performance of this production. Ms. Tofte has had some nice accolades and awards for her writing, and an opportunity to see her work produced was a genuine pleasure. The premise of the show is that, 75 years into the future, a group of 7 female astronauts with a male captain is orbiting the planet Mars for a specific mission of great scientific importance to the future viability of planet Earth.

The preshow music had some nice futuristic elements and created a good vibe for the audience to settle into as we waited for the show to begin. The opening scene was pretty intense emotionally. There's discovery of a dead body, the lone male and Captain. He is discovered on the deck and his death is quickly determined to be a murder. The crew members loudly, and a little frenetically wrangle with the question of who among them is a suspect. A couple of standout performances began to emerge in this first scene. Sara Broad as Stark is a convincing and level headed officer who is promptly promoted to Captain by virtue of the corpse on the floor. She was very believable as military leadership material. She spoke with confidence and authority and even when her crewmembers disagreed, she held her convictions. Katrina Weber as medical officer Cava had a mature and professional manner on stage. I especially appreciated her ability to enunciate and project her authority through vocal tones. The characters of Baston played by Betsey Williams and Nataki played by Erin-Leigh Moses were well matched as crewmembers that had some tension and more than a little aggression toward each other. Wollman played by Rachel Silberman was a passionate advocate for her scientific prowess and the technology she had created for this mission. At times, that passion made it hard for the audience to understand her. The pleas and entreaties were tumbling out at such a rate and degree of urgency, that it was hard to comprehend. The character Toulle, played by Shannin Ashmore didn't look particularly confident on stage, mainly due to her slouched posture. I was not a fan of her hairstyle of curly "side bangs," because they hid her facial expressions. Pierce, played by Hannah Hetland was the character that I had the most difficulty empathizing with. Her character seemed weak and unable to cope in the beginning of the show. Her naivete at the nature of her relationship with the captain and the inevitable revelations of that relationship were a little confusing to me. She is determined to be the youngest and physically strongest among the crew for the final moments on the ship, but the gravity of that responsibility did not seem to have been set up in earlier scenes.

I felt the technical aspects of production were generally, very well executed. Set pieces were appropriate to the space and added to the atmosphere of the central location of action on the ship. The transmitter used for the spacewalk was pretty recognizable in its functioning nature. It might need a few tweaks to make it less recognizable. The choices made in lighting and sound were good and added some nice texture to the production. Costumes for the crew were beautifully crafted and adorned.

Directorially, I would suggest that the actors could use more uniformity in posture and physical bearing on stage. I would tamp down on actors adding immature gestures such as sticking out a tongue at a fellow crewmember. I want to commend Ms. Tofte for coming to work with this cast prior to opening of the production. I was impressed with the script. Everything I know about deep space I learned from Star Trek in it's heyday and then later reruns, but the theories presented sounded plausible. The story, the dialogue and the themes of leadership, and sacrifice were especially strong. I really hope that 75 years from now women have come even further in their fight for equality in aspects of gender norms and leadership. I applaud your skill in giving audiences a chance to visualize that possibility.

Women Of 4G will be presented through February 28th at State University Theatre's Performing Art Center. Tickets are available online at https://www.tix.com/ticket-sales/sdstate/479.

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