Spooky Action's 2020-2021 begins with Maple and Vine, by Jordan Harrison, directed by Stevie Zimmerman. Big City dwellers Katha and Ryu have become disenchanted with their 21st-century lives. The harder they try to figure out what happiness looks like, the more elusive it becomes. Then they meet Dean, from a idealistic community that exists in a permanent state of 1955. They forsake cell phones and sushi for cigarettes and Chicken a la King, taking on new identities that challenge who they thought they were and who they might become. How far will they go -- how far would you go to alter your life in the pursuit of happiness?
Speaking about his fictional Society for Dynamic Obsolescence, Harrison says, “The notion that less freedom could make you happy is a morally problematic idea... I’m hoping that the audience thinks, ‘I would never do something like that... Or would I?'”
