When we are children, the line between what is right and what is wrong is pretty steadfast. Our choices are a lot simpler, and most of our decisions are made for us, yet we know the inherent difference between right and wrong, regardless of which path we take. As we get older, drink more, slut around a bit (or a lot in some cases), and learn to think for ourselves, the lines get a little more blurred.
The Future Is Not What It Was, the inaugural production by the Kindling Theatre Company is a story about a pair of roommates named Tom (Rhett Owen) and Sean (Michael Rabe) and their path to navigate between modern morality and excess, while struggling to survive in the big city. Anyone who has ever had a roommate who gets high everyday, sleeps around, doesn’t clean up enough, or suffers from depression without realizing it will find the characters of the play immediately familiar. There were plenty of laugh out loud moments, and bouts of drunken hilarity by Tom and Sean.
Rhett Owen (Tom) provided lots of comic relief with his portrayal of a moral compass, while Michael Rabe (Sean) managed to play the part of someone hiding from his own guilt with pathological nonchalance, perfectly. Maya Kazan was refreshing as Laura, the girl down the hall, and a third part of the twisted love triangle that ensues when three late twenty-something’s collide on their path to find something fulfilling. Maryam Hassouni was an unexpected delight as a loud, drunk Staten Island girl that breezes into the show and drops a nugget of advice like a slutty, skinny, miniature Buddha.
Overall, the show illustrated the confusion that comes with adulthood perfectly, and will definitely resonate with 90% of the people living and surviving in this crazy city. It plays at the Walkerspace Theatre downtown, so you can grab a bite at a BYOB in Chinatown after (as I did). I also spotted Lily Rabe and Sarah Paulson (from American Horror Story) and Judith Light (from every sitcom ever made) in the audience.
It doesn’t matter whether you are new to the city, discovering what it means to live somewhere that decadence and excess are readily available at any hour, or you have lived here a while, seen it all, and recognize the plight of the modern urbanite. The Future Is Not What It Was is so effective because we all know what it is to have expectations, to hold ourselves to moral standards, and to be somewhat lost in between.
