There Will Come Soft Rains

By: 

[[Marielle Solan]]

Sinking Ship Productions delivers ingenious new stage adaptations of three science fiction tales, using elements of story theatre, puppetry, and video. Director [[Jon Levin]] takes 3 stories and turns them into wonderfully theatrical fare.

On the opening day of FringeNYC 2008, I headed to a late night performance of [[There Will Come Soft Rains|There Will Come Soft Rains (A Science-Fiction Symphony in Three Acts)]], produced by Sinking Ship Productions. The one-hour show tells three different stories through puppetry, projections, dance, and live music. The source material features "How the World Was Saved" by [[Stanislaw Lem]], "On the Nature of Time" by [[Bill Pronzini]] & [[Barry N. Malzberg]], and "There Will Come Soft Rains" by [[Ray Bradbury]].

By: 

[[Marielle Solan]]

Though the three classic science-fiction stories [[Jon Levin]] has adapted for [[There Will Come Soft Rains]] are warnings of how unfortunately easy it is to destroy what is so hard to create, thanks to some imaginative direction, these shorts thankfully preserve and enhance the material instead.

A DOWNPOUR OF INGENUITY

Science Fiction writers call upon the depths of their imaginations to explore territory outside the walls of the everyday. Director/adapter [[Jon Levin]] follows suit in [[There Will Come Soft Rains]], his inventive re-imagining of three classic sci-fi stories.

Science fiction is rarely attempted on stage. The special effects wizardry of cinema can easily convey the outer-space wonders of speculative tales. But director [[Jon Levin]] and a company of young actors, recently graduated from Oberlin College, have assembled a clever program of one-act stage adaptations of sci-fi that taxes the imagination more than a CGI software program. [[There Will Come Soft Rains]] was a hit at the recent New York International Fringe Festival and is making a brief encore appearance.

A daring Fringe cast, led by director Jon Levin, takes on three science- fiction stories in this quirky, excellent trio of plays. In the first, by Stanislaw Lem, two large puppets with lightbulbs for heads argue over a machine that can create everything that starts with the letter n: neutrons, negligees, even nothing! (As might be expected, this last item gets them into some trouble.) The puppets emote and gesticulate with heartwarming authenticity and the allegory of creating one's own destruction is timely.