“The Women of 4G” reviewed by Julia W. Rath

Somewhat Recommended **Whoever said that theater has to be high-brow never anticipated the performance of “Women of 4G” by the Babes with Blades Theatre Company at the Factory Theater, in Rogers Park.   Written by Amy Tofte and directed by Lauren Katz, the play is science fiction meets office politics within the venue of a spacecraft orbiting the Earth seventy-five years in the future.  It features an all women cast.

The play is scattered and disjointed.  Especially troubling are the glaring inconsistencies between the first and second acts.  It is as if two separate plays are smushed together.  The first act is Agatha Christie; the second is “Titanic.”  Neither of which is successful.

Though widely disparate, both acts share the female astronauts’ search for validity in a traditionally male-oriented career path.  Their ultimate aim is not only to succeed in their mission but also to glorify the reputation of strong women who can accomplish almost anything.

Act One opens with the corpse of Captain Reardon, the commanding officer of spacecraft 4G. There are important jobs to be done especially with the captain’s untimely death, but instead of focusing on their duty, the seven remaining (all-female) members of the space crew engage in petty politics, replete with backbiting, rumor and gossip.  All of their cattiness surrounding career goals and the willingness of some to “sleep to the top” eventually causes the women to resort to physical violence and verbal assaults as they vie for positions of authority and power in the social and career hierarchy—and seek to replace the corpse in a leadership role.

Although the characters eventually overcome their mean-spiritedness and try to put a good face on their professional roles, the play often devolves into a pretext for (female) mixed martial arts.  In this vein, credit must be given to fight director Maureen Yasko, who does an excellent job of choreographing and staging all the brawl scenes.  If you like kick-ass physicality and provocative dialogue, this show will not fail to please.  The jabs and snipes are funny at times; sometimes ironic; sometimes not funny at all—but seemed to satisfy most of the audience present.

At the same time that all the sparring is going on, the astronauts are each trying to figure out which one among them may have been responsible for killing the captain.  “Enhanced interrogation techniques”—though gruesome and difficult to watch for some—was the turning point of the show and ironically the cleverest part of the writing.

Act Two has a very different focus and deals with the women’s teamwork, military discipline, and dedication to doing one’s duty.  The least competent and most flawed character among them is chosen to continue the mission and relate the story of the spacecraft simply because she is considered the youngest and most energetic, not the most accomplished, capable, likeable, or truthful.  Preserving their legacy is what is most important to the crew as opposed to furthering the truth of what really has happened in outer space.

The very first thing I noticed when the actors first took the stage were their costumes, which look like old-fashioned men’s pajamas and somewhat akin to judo uniforms.  If the space vibe was what was required, these did not satisfy.  But there was a deeper reason why I was so disappointed in these outfits.   Allow me to digress for the moment.

One might ask why the play is called the “Women of 4G.”  A point raised later on in the story is that the government discriminated against this particular spacecraft by giving it the seeming non-descript name of “4G” as compared to the “Adonis 5”, the macho name of the all-male craft shadowing it.

This begs the question of what is being meant by the term 4G and the premise behind it.  In my opinion, it relates to the “girls” of Apartment 4G (read “For Girls”).  Now back to the uniforms:  They are all too reminiscent of a pajama party.  Replace the pillow fighting of sorority sisters with the wrestling, punching, and aikido moves on board the spacecraft.  Throwing pillows morphs into throwing punches.  I have no issue with the actors getting physical, but the point behind doing so in this production is occasionally lost.   Why must they hit and punch to prove themselves?   Must one throw punches in order to be taken seriously as a human being?

Good entertainment manipulates the audience into experiencing a set of emotions that the playwright and director have intended.  If Act One had been successful, my mind should have raced through all the complexities of figuring out the whodunnit, and then I should have felt satisfied when the appropriate character was found out.  I gained no such satisfaction.  If Act Two had been successful, I should have felt very sad, if not tearful, by the end of the show, but I felt no such emotion. With the possible exception of Wollman (Jazmín Corona), the characters are not sympathetic or convincing.

In short, the play doesn’t succeed in what it tries to do.  It tries to be profound but isn’t. If it’s supposed to be a feminist story that promotes gender parity and empowers women, it misses the mark.   My takeaway is perhaps the reverse of what was intended:  What these grown-up women have thus become are overly emotional female stereotypes on testosterone, so when faced with critical situations, they cannot be taken seriously.  At the end, each of the characters would do anything—immoral, unethical, illegal—so that nothing would mar their collective story of their bravery, ambition, and success.  From my perspective, choosing the least honest person to promote a phony story ultimately tarnishes everybody’s reputation—once its falsity is discovered.  Moreover, destroying government records will most likely lead to a criminal investigation of the space program and the ethics of the people involved in it.

I must give a shout-out to the creative minimalistic props which serve as control panels, beds, tables, biers, etc.  Speaking of biers (or should I say beers), audience members freely brought their bottles and pizza slices inside the theater and chowed down while watching the performance.

The guest accompanying me during opening night was a science fiction aficionado, who followed the sci-fi aspects of the show more closely than I did.  As a tribute to him, I have appended his (unsolicited) review to my own:

“OK the captain leaves his life on the ship and the crew of seven continue on the space oddity.

“The importance and urgency depend on the saving of the Earth by firing off a reaction from a satellite to create a new atmosphere with oxygen and O3 (ozone).

“The mission and control of the vessel have been compromised with the knowledge that one of the crew dreamt of sabotage on the mission.  Physical contact with the satellite needed to occur to begin the life-saving mission.  Unfortunately, events confuse the issue with the ultimate test of life on earth as was known or success of the crew.”

“The real story may be in the woman crew using a powerful style with each other.  The resentment and sniping do not amuse.  The stage fighting does not show peaceful theater goers much respect.  The kid inside said, ‘Who did you go for?’  After the 3^rd such fight I needed a water bottle, which the excellent theater management had.”

“The Women of 4G” is playing at The Factory Theater, 1623 W. Howard Street, in Chicago.

Regular performances are Thursdays – Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 3:00 p.m., and run through September 14, 2019.

General admission tickets are $28 with a discounted student and senior price available at $15.  Every show has a limited number of $10 tickets for industry professionals, with proof of theatre industry affiliation.

Additional information and tickets are available now at BabesWithBlades.org or by calling 773-904-0391.

To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at “The Women of 4G”.