By HELEN KWONG
The State News – June 7, 2001
What are we? Who are we? Where are we going to go?
The “2001: A Space Odyssey” play tries to plant these questions in your mind, but it won’t give you the answers. That’s up to your interpretation.
The play, which will run at the Riverwalk Theatre, 228 Museum Drive in Lansing, during the next two weeks, is based on the 1968 science fiction movie by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke.
Lansing-based Icarus Falling Productions will perform the appropriately timed “2001” on Friday and Sunday this weekend and next weekend in the warehouse space of the Riverwalk Theatre. Both Friday shows start at 8 p.m. and both Sunday shows begin at 2 p.m.
Icarus Falling is a nonprofit organization that has put on plays like “True West,” “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” and “Bondage.”
This play is more expensive than the troupe’s previous plays. Daryl Thompson, play co-director and a founder of Icarus Falling, said the company is financing the production “right out of their own pockets,” with some help from outside contributors.
“2001” is a surreal story beginning millions of years ago when early hominids roamed the earth and formed a monolith structure. The story jumps ahead to the year 2001, when a monolith is found on the moon. The play revolves around the connection between the prehistoric earth monolith, the moon monolith and a monolith on Jupiter.
The movie relies heavily on visual images and special effects, but Icarus Falling’s version will be “a little more human,” said Thompson, an MSU alumnus.
“It’s not going to be the same as the film,” he said. “It’s going to be a new interpretation. But, at the same time, it’s going to be a lively interpretation. We are going to have to rely on the characters to tell the story.”
Thompson said the movie itself evokes questions and covers moral implications.
“Everyone who sees it interprets a different way,” said Fred Longacre, producer and one of the actors in the play. “Everyone takes the message in a different way.”
Longacre, another MSU alumnus, said “2001: A Space Odyssey” forces the audience to question itself and the world in which it lives.
Jeff Croff, public relations officer and co-founder of Icarus Falling, agrees.
“The show causes us to ask questions as we (enter) the new era of artificial intelligence,” he said.
