Diandra Reviews It All-

If Black Mirror ever decided to do a gospel choir, it would be Octet. Playing Signature Theater until June 8, Dave Malloy’s new musical goes acapella on humanity’s addiction to the internet. Yet, it focuses on an intriguing, “chicken or the egg” question; has the internet made humanity crueler or has humanity’s cruelty made the internet?

Karly (Kim Blanck), Ed (Adam Bashian), Paula (Starr Busby), Toby (Justin Gregory Lopez), Velma (Kuhoo Verma), Marvin (J.D. Mollison), Jessica (Margo Seibert), and Henry (Alex Gibson) gather at a church basement. Upon entering the theater, you feel it is a church with bingo arrangements lying around, free coffee and cake being offered, and community banners plastered on the wall. Yet, the most intriguing detail are the spiritual hymns blasting on the radio as people enter. “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” was a slave hymn sung by Africans experiencing the most tortuous, abominable inhumanity but still looking to Heaven…. to better. Now these characters do not come close to the horrors black slaves faced, but Dave Malloy assures that you understand they are chained.

With a harmonica hum, each character broke into a song that represented their psychological and emotional enslavement to the “stale, pale glowing light.” They all heeded to the shares, posts, comments, and likes of their social feeds, online games, and dating apps. Yet, my fascination with director Annie Tippe’s work is that it presents the internet as a symptom: not a disease. So often the world wide web is portrayed as a virus rather than viral; ignoring that when it comes to spreading knowledge about local inhumanities and global injustice it is vital. What would movements like the Arab Spring or #MeToo be without Twitter? Yet, to counter, where would the U.S. government be, right now, without it? To Malloy, the internet amplifies humanity’s self-loathing and destructiveness, but history shows those two things have always had a human presence.

Frankly, I cannot say whom is the best character or actor on the Signature stage. Each one gives their heart to their performance, has their “show-stopping” song, and turns the open stage into an immersive, raw forum on technology. As a viewer, you relate to Paula’s marital isolation, Ed and Jessica’s frustrating dating lives, Velma’s deep loneliness, Henry’s desire to feel smart, Toby’s desire to feel simple, and Marvin’s mistrust of everything. These people are not solely fractured by the cruelties of the internet because, by all means, the web is a tool. They are broken at the realization that it is other human beings, including themselves, that are using it against them. Yes, we, as a society, can say “Screens suck!” and “Facebook is killing us!” but behind every web page and application is a human choice.

As Verma’s Velma declared, “The online world is the real world!” bells rang in my head. Sure, the Internet can be a heightened and altered version of the world, but its root is still found in humanity’s will. Hence, viewers will be enthralled by the man-made hymns sung to them by Octet’s incredible cast/ chamber choir, but, in the end, they will feel challenged by the question it leaves within them. While many shows aim to leave an indelible mark on audiences, Octet wished to leave an indelible question; has the internet made humanity crueler or has humanity’s cruelty made the internet? Click Here To Buy Tickets To Octet.