With testaments like these, "Pastel City" is sure to be a memorable epic tale, full of funny dialogue and every sci-fi and fantasy element the audience can imagine.
In one world, it is 3011 A.D., and a tyrannical Octarian regime controls everything from education to birth and death. In another world, two young lovers, Bastian and Renee, fight to escape aliens called Sizzissezes and the confines of the mind. God, one female and one male, overlook everything while such abstract beings as Destiny and Free Choice clown around.
As the audience is tossed from dimension to dimension, magical beings like Secretegogue (Taela Brooks '06), a bold and beautiful goddess who provides prophesies to the very confused characters of Bastian and Renee, and a hybrid-woman, reminiscent of the Borg queen from Star Trek, make myth and reality difficult to discern.
The history of the play is complex and the cast has delved deeply into their roles to transform the Experimental Theater into several different dimensions of the universe. Playwright Amber Stroud '03 confessed that the script and storyline have been evolving for years. Only now does it seem to have all come together, uniting a story that spans 1000 years and a multitude of different locations, including four different space-time dimensions. According to Hahn, "a lot of the play is in the costumes and the lighting." The four different dimensions manage to collide and converge through innovative and complex lighting, sound, movement, color and costumes.
Though "Pastel City" promises to be good fun, serious subject matter does find its way into the intricate plot. Al-Bilali insists that the play also "speaks to what's happening on the planet right now." It deals with issues of the human soul, the evolution of the human mind, and it subtly warns against man's growing dependence on machines. Though the history of the action in the play is immense and complicated, it is not important that the audience understands everything that they see on stage, as long as they get immersed in the story. As soon as the lights dim for the overture, the audience will feel as though they have entered a parallel universe of sci-fi extravagance and vibrantly different life forms.
The cast of "Pastel City" is just as diverse as the storylines and settings. Actors and stage crew hail from all of the Five Colleges as well as the surrounding area, and have all different levels of experience, varying between theater majors to students who have never before participated in a theatrical production. During five weeks of almost frenzied preparation, the cast has "created a very wonderful ensemble [that is] supportive of each other," said Al-Bilali.
"Pastel City" will run Nov. 7-9 at 8 p.m. in the Experimental Theater.