Schizophrenic Futurism

Pillar of Fire

Written By Ray Bradbury

Directed by Matthew Cohen

At Dunster House tonight and tomorrow

OF ALL THE FORMS of literature, bad science fiction is perhaps the least easily adapted for the stage--a point painfully demonstrated in the Dunster House production of Ray Bradbury's Pillar of Fire.

Bradbury hit his high point with the title. The premise is neither fresh nor well developed, and much of the dialogue is written in the flowery gee-whiz pedantry that misled adolescent trekkies into thinking Bradbury was a real writer. Fortunately, many of the scenes in director Matthew Cohen's production are improvised; unfortunately, the rest are not, and the merging of 1940s what-if sci-fi with 1986 improv is unnervingly schizophrenic.

The play opens with the timely revival of the protagonist, Lantry, played with admirable perseverence by Adam Fratto. Apparently the citizens of future Earth have decided that human bodies are a form of toxic waste, and so have exhumed and burned every last corpse--with the exception of Lantry, who springs to life and escapes.

The future world in which Lantry finds himself is, unsurprisingly, an anti-utopia; crime is unknown, death is not feared and Ray Bradbury books have all been burned. Well, maybe not such an anti-utopia after all. But Lantry just can't seem to enjoy himself. Apparently he disapproves of the unquestioning happiness of the amazingly well-adjusted people he meets. So he kills them.

PILLAR OF FIRE in this way achieves a monumental trivialization of death. Lantry isn't much concerned over his victims' deaths, the victims don't care too much either, and the audience would like to see all of them buy the farm. The result is not only an overwhelming feeling of boredom, but an undermining of the ostensible point of the play: that isolation from the reality of death is bad.

Given the utter worthlessness of the script, it is admirable that the cast has the courage to remain on stage; in a production like this the goal is not to turn in a remarkable performance, but to avoid looking ridiculous. Fratto is successful in this respect, managing to stay in character during moments that are otherwise completely implausible. He is closest to redemption during audience-involvement scenes which come as close as anything in the show to real dramatic moments; it is telling, however, that Lantry's attempt to raise the audience from the dead comes to naught.

The rest of the cast, a dauntless ensemble, portray for the most part the unfortunates of the future who suffer Lantry's murderous libido. They also suffer Bradbury's murderous writing, having to deliver such lines as "Law? The terms you are using no longer exist." Several improvised scenes, particularly a discussion about the digestibility of spaghetti, are genuinely funny; others miss the mark. On the whole, though, the comic breaks serve as welcome oases in a sea of burdensome sci-fi philosophizing.

In fact, Pillar of Fire would have been better conceived as a comedy; two-dimensional science fiction that tries to be serious inevitably falls flat in the three dimensions of the stage. As it is, this is one play that deserves to be teleported into hyperspace.