S2

In Edward Mast’s futuristic play, the future looks much like the present, except that people wear funny clothes and talk like robots. The political turmoil of S2is not so much a vision of what’s to come, but rather an amalgam of events that have already happened. Although Mast seems to be frustrated with the modern capitalistic military-industrial complex of an unnamed world superpower, the setting—a developing country under attack after its refusal to continue sugar production—brings to mind most clearly the United Fruit Company and the Banana Massacre of 1928. As any cynic or conspiracy theorist will tell you, civil liberties will soon be out the window entirely, quite possibly leading to the apocalypse. And the situation for homosexuals, or sodomites as the robot-people call them, is just as dismal as ever. One of those sodomites is Slate, a 14-year-old prostitute whose lover is murdered at the hands of the money-driven global hegemony. Slate vows revenge, but he’s interrupted when a power-and-sex-crazed female representative of said country tortures him, thus turning him straight. The play might tragically end there, but he soon has sex with a woman, remembers he’s gay, and manages to continue on his mission. BRENT ARONOWITZ 8 p.m. Fri.-Sat. Ends June 7.
Fridays, Saturdays, 8 p.m. Starts: May 9. Continues through June 7, 2008