Aaron Heffernan, left, and playwright Eoghan Quinn in “Bears in Space.”
By Orla O’Sullivan
I could tell you what I saw last night at 59E59 Theaters, but by the time you see “Bears in Space” it might be a different show. At least, to hear the performers tell it.
Aaron Heffernan, one of the four, guessed that night’s show was “35 percent improvised” when asked in a Q&A afterwards with the audience.
The playwright, Eoghan Quinn, disagreed it was that much. “Well, I took lower-course maths,” Heffernan joked back, while Jack Gleeson, another member of Collapsing Horse productions reminded them, playfully, “There are people watching.”
Surprising, whimsical and collaborative, the Q&A went the same way as the play.
Otherwise “Bears in Space” has your standard storyline about three bear-astronauts hurtling into hostile airspace with a talking computer that cryogenically froze them in response to a sudden, inexplicable loss of energy. The two male bears have awoken but the female captain of the spaceship (now we know that this is not based on a true story) remains dormant.
Oh, and the actors speak through handheld bear puppets—not ventriloquist style, and, yet, you find yourself relating to the expressive puppets rather than the people on stage.
And there is a meta story, told by Cameron Macaulay, as a 197’s BBC-inspired narrator (think Richard Attenborough without the warmth). He is the keeper of all stories since the start of time, and is sharing this particular one with the audience.
The three characters on stage are supposed to be his sons and they echo the retro tone of the narrator’s very proper Received Pronunciation with the pre-digital devices they deploy to help tell the tale. Among them are broadcast tape reels. The highlight is a prison escape hilariously conveyed by miniature silhouettes of bears bobbing up and down as they advance across the landscape—a background rendered as a simple, paper scroll that is turned manually.
Dizzy yet? Perhaps you are starting to feel like Officer Bhourghash (Quinn) the “amnesiac bear,” picked up adrift in the galaxy and still searching for his origins.
And we haven’t even gotten to how this spaceship’s sentient computer (Quinn), is a kind of “Space Odyssey”’s Hal with extra attitude.
This play could have been a disaster with all its convolutions and references too numerous to mention, but the creators’ talent and energy propels the audience to a place they have not been. All act well and Aaron Heffernan, the only one professionally trained in theatre, sings well, as Officer Volyova, on top of creating the set and puppets. Macaulay, a music graduate, did sound and plays various instruments from guitar to glockenspiel.
Quinn plays Bhourghash as endearingly bemused and Russian sounding. Heffernan’s Volyova speaks with an equally unexplained Glaswegian accent (that’s just the galaxy we’re in).
The play opens with these two officers emerging from their computer-induced hibernation. Bhourghash apologizes for lashing out in frustration at being stuck on a ship with one other male and a computer: “Sorry, I think I’m just tired.” Volyova reacts, “But you’ve been asleep for 700 years!” “Maybe I overslept,” Bhourgash deadpans in reply.
Lost without their captain, they face a new crisis. They are nearing a planet that might be hostile, and the computer, lacking political savvy, has accepted an invite from the leader of Metrotopia. He’s also played by Quinn, as an Etonian-accented cross between Dr. Evil and Kim Jong-un.
Lovesick Volyova won’t leave his beloved Captain, the appropriately named, lifeless Lazara. But Bhourghash is going down there…
Sadly, the whole enterprise starts losing energy about three-quarters of the way through the show and it fizzles to its end. Still, it’s well worth the memorable ride beforehand. Whatever performance you catch, it is safe to say that you will never have seen anything quite like it.
“Bears in Space” by Eoghan Quinn, with puppetry by Aaron Heffernan, and additional improvisation by fellow performers Cameron Macaulay and Jack Gleeson runs through Oct. 2 at 59E59 Theaters, on East 59th St. Tickets for the self-declared cult-comedy at (212) 279-4200 or www.59e59.org.
