Mentions/Awards/Kudos/Photos:
Check out playwright Jennifer Haley's website about the show at: www.jenniferhaley.com/neighborhood.html
"Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom"
Sept. 11th - Sept 26th
by Jennifer Haley
Directed by Chuck Harper
What is happening in the suburbs? Lines blur between fact and fantasy as parents find their teenagers addicted to an online horror game that is turning them into misguided militants. Fear has a life of its own in this theatrical tale of real and imagined zombies, not only in the game but in the eyes of the neighbors. Award-winning playwright Jennifer Haley's apocalyptic vision combines virtual role-playing, GPS technology, teenage alienation and the "family next door" to create this provocative psychological thriller. A true Twilight Zone for the 21st century.
Reviews:
BY JUDITH NEWMARK
POST-DISPATCH THEATER CRITIC
09/15/2009
Remember "Little Houses," the old song satirizing suburban life: "There's a blue one and a green one and a pink one and a yellow one/ And they're all made out of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same."
Could a clever DJ mix and sample it, until its message rang out with a modern sound?
Maybe that DJ exists, and maybe not, but playwright Jennifer Haley goes for the same effect with her short, exciting drama, "Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom." To lampoon suburban conformity, Haley invents a violent computer game. It allows her to expose dysfunctional families, sterile American culture and a cauldron of anger simmering just below the conventions of well-kept lawns and fashionably upholstered furniture.
In Haley's imaginary game, adults are zombies that teenagers need to kill to save their own lives. The writer is not exactly breaking new ground here. But she endows the play with enough modern style and eerie aesthetics to make its current production, at HotCity Theatre, fun and provocative. Chuck Harper directs.
The actors all take a number of roles. Pamela Reckamp and John Pierson play parents, by turns anxious and indifferent and obsessed. Maggie Conroy and Greg Fenner play their teenaged children, variously hot and nerdy and — big surprise — obsessive, too.
The kids play a dangerous online game that their parents scarcely understand. It's surreal, but real-world parallels shouldn't pose a big obstacle to anyone who knows a little Freud. Thanks to four committed performers, and to playwright Harper, "Neighborhood 3" makes for absorbing theater.
It's an especially intriguing choice for parents and teens to take in together. The conversation afterward could be spectacular.
------------------
Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom
Hot City Theatre
Richard Green, Talkin' Broadway
What could be worse than Columbine? Worse than the Manson family? Or worse than the Jim Jones cult suicides in Guyana?
Well, don't look now, but it's coming from inside your own house, in Jennifer Haley's gripping, bizarre horror story. Four actors race through a break-neck series of costume changes to populate a faceless suburban street in Anytown, USA. The teenagers there have been overcome by a popular computer game that blurs the line between the real and virtual worlds, with consequences that can scarcely be described.
The sense of dread is supplied, not just by the dank and turgid background noise (so essential to any dark video game, I suppose), but also by the strange sense of entrapment that pervades every scene. Each of those scenes is a two-person affair, with one party being uneasy or gathering their suspicions, while the other seems to be spinning a web of intrigue around them, capturing them word by word. In my notes I have the phrase, "people keep ensnaring each other!" This helps set up the violent freak-out to come, with bloodstains that appear and suddenly disappear from walls, and doormats that may say either "Welcome" or "Help Me" from moment to moment. There's also plenty of humor in the early going, and plenty of examples of where our Levittown neighborhoods themselves seem created precisely for the post-neo-gothic scenario.
Pamela Reckamp is outstanding as a series of suburban moms, vaguely aware of their kids' online distractions, in one case torn between respecting her son's privacy and a girl's insistence that she break into his bedroom. John Pierson plays a tremendous variety of dads and other grown men with supreme agility. Everyone knows "the grizzled mystery man," the stock character from horror stories, and after all of Mr. Pierson's touchy-feely, awkward and humorous appearances earlier in the evening, it is this odd, quiet, warning character that really takes our breath away. Maggie Conroy plays all the girls on the block, some nice and some very odd and disconcerting, in a way that just slightly levitates above the school-aged scandals of our daily papers. And Greg Fenner does nicely as the boys, earnest and easily consumed by adventure, until things begin to go wrong, when he kicks up the scary to unexpected heights. Each actor presents a dazzling aspect, or two or three, throughout the evening.
Chuck Harper directs this eighty-minute nightmare, though it's so densely packed with detail and filled with strange lighting and sound effects, that it seems more like a full two-hour adventure. And techies Catherine Krummey and Erin Keller scurry on and off with lightning efficiency during the blackouts, setting up the next scenes of confounding wariness to follow. If you think you can never be scared again, this show will certainly eat away at your own smug security.
I wasn't going to mention this, but the "risers" that support the audience (at least, on the far side of the studio theater) shake alarmingly whenever people clamber up to find a seat. This actually redounds to the benefit of the show, adding a further layer of danger to the overall experience as you contemplate a Day of the Locust type of collapse. Couple that with the growing awareness that the actors are just barely making it out on stage after their latest frantic costume change, and you've got yourself a surprisingly compelling, all-encompassing fright-fest.
--------------
Chris Gibson, Broadway World
Seeing Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom could serve as a wake-up call, or even a cautionary tale, for some parents, since it examines the addictive qualities and violent nature of certain video games. Of course, it takes that idea to a Twilight-Zone extreme, but that's what makes it so engaging. Hot City Theatre is presenting a superbly mounted production of this intriguing work, and I think it's required viewing.
Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom is a video game, but a most unusual one. Gamers hook up online to hunt down zombies in a neighborhood whose layout is a direct copy of the subdivision they live in. Those who play find themselves completely absorbed, exploring their virtual experience through the eyes of an avatar meant to represent their character in the game. But, what if those avatars could break down the fourth wall and enter into reality through a wormhole?
The action is played out as a series of vignettes between various adults and teenagers, and the cast of four cover all the bases here with considerable aplomb. Greg Fenner and Maggie Conroy deliver memorable and distinct performances as each of the various kids from the block. Fenner excels as: a young newbie who's itching to play the game; a troubled gamer who thinks his actions onscreen may have translated into some kind of murderous act on the family pet; and as a brooding loner who's trying very hard to ignore his mother. Conroy is equally good, with turns as: a sexually curious punk girl; a sweet ex-girlfriend looking to recover something personal from her ex-boyfriend's room; and as a goth girl trying to warn her friends of the game's dangerous outcomes.
John Pierson and Pamela Reckamp are very good as the adult figures that appear. Pierson delivers strongly with his portrayals of: a separated Dad dealing with a rebellious daughter; a disaffected Man who's obsessed with manicuring his lawn, and who's more aware of the dire situation than he lets on; and a distraught father attempting to keep his manic daughter under control. Reckamp also makes a favorable impression with nice turns as: a frantic wife putting together an intervention for her alcoholic husband; a woman in denial of her son's indiscretions; and a concerned mother trying to connect with her son.
Chuck Harper's direction is inspired, combining the action and intensity of a video game with the drama you'd expect from such a topical issue. Harper's sound design aids immeasurably layering pitch-altered narration over industrial ambiance to great effect before each scene (or level in the game). Mark Wilson contributes a very cool and starkly realized set that really brings out the gaming influence. Sean Savoie's excellent lighting adds immensely, with some fiendishly clever use of blacklight. Scott Briehan's costumes add the final touch, neatly delineating each character. There's even an FX gag that's executed to shocking perfection.
Jennifer Haley's script is a brilliant piece of social satire, and Hot City Theatre has put together a truly exceptional production that does this play complete justice.
Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?
Hot New Video Game Consists Solely Of Shooting People Point-Blank In The Face