Playwright: Anthony Moseley. At: Collaboraction at Flat Iron Arts Building, 1579 N. Milwaukee Ave. Tickets: 312-226-9633 or www.collaboraction.org; $15-$30. Runs through: May 29
The sentiments expressed in Collaboraction's world premiere Connected are certainly noble. Created by artistic director/writer Anthony Moseley to celebrate Collaboraction's 20th anniversary, Connected makes no bones about being an expansively reflective work stressing the importance of storytelling through time as a way to help define mankind's place in the world and future at large.
That's a lot to take on for a humble studio-theater production, and you can often feel the strain of too much being bitten off all at once. Some aspects of Connected are truly thoughtful and sublime in their high-tech glory. Other bits involving puppetry and actors imitating cavemen come off as laughably hokey.
The defining ethos of Connected is to bring audiences and actors together as if everyone is participating in a campfire gathering that looks backward and forward at the same time. Set designer Ashley Woods seats the audience around a central fire pit of sorts, while surrounding screens allow for video designer Joe Burke to project impressive images in 360-degree configurations. Lighting designer Erik Barry and sound designer Matthew Reich also offer up some very impressive work.
The generational and racially diverse cast are identified by planetary names, though they largely function as a changeable ensemble taking on many roles in stories tied to the Big Bang, Plato's cave prisoners, a Lakota tribe creation myth and a modern-day extended family gathering. Connected's sci-fi framework centered around a little girl identified as "Planet X" ( Stella Moseley ) should allow for all of these disparate story strands to be tied together, but it's very easy to be baffled along the way.
Connected also embraces the here and now of the performance you're attending, but those who don't really want to do audience participation are not forced to do so. Thankfully there were no telecommunication interruptions in the last part of the show on the night I attended, since the audience is invited to turn on their phones mid-performance to snap selfies as a document of their experience at Connected.
There's also a very strong environmental message driving Connected, which is important even as it comes off as preachy. The emphasis on a few songs from the 1960s also gives Connected a hippie-dippy vibe that could easily make some cringe, even though that decade was important as the founding ferment for so many progressive freedoms that Americans take for granted today.
Although Connected can be extremely disjointed, it sometimes impresses as it draws upon old and new theatrical practices to get its points across. Collaboraction certainly has the right to be indulgent for its 20th anniversary, though the mishmash end result of Connected often feels like a low-rent planetarium show straining to inspire awe.