by Dr. David Glen Robinson
The Off-Center is the homeland of the Rude Mechanicals theatre company, where that storied group has ridden their great performances to theatrical glory. So it is a little intimidating to walk in there with performance on one’s mind. Natalie George and Jeffrey Mills showed no sign of intimidation whatsoever when they rented the space from the Rudes and installed Spacestation 1985 in it. The piece is a laugh riot at its core, and it is a send-up of 1980s TV sci-fi, a send-up of the 1980s as a whole and a demonstration piece of alternative performance forms.
The story is light, but it is a surprisingly flexible vehicle for comedy. Two NASA rejects are hired by the private corporation, Dedalus, Inc, to pilot a private spaceship to Halley’s Comet to mine minerals from the tail of the comet—a typically flimsy, improbable 1980spremise, but who cares when the laughs start and seem not to end? The neatest trick of the play is that the producers fly past us a story that contains 1980s sci-fi futuristic technology and the story takes place in the 1980s. Now wait a second…hmm…
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