{"id":110379,"date":"2025-09-22T10:27:35","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T17:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=110379"},"modified":"2025-09-22T10:29:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T17:29:34","slug":"berkeleys-shotgun-players-cover-wide-swath-of-subject-matter-in-challenging-play-the-motion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/berkeleys-shotgun-players-cover-wide-swath-of-subject-matter-in-challenging-play-the-motion\/","title":{"rendered":"Berkeley\u2019s Shotgun Players cover wide swath of subject matter in challenging play, \u2018The Motion\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Gabrielle Maalihan and David Siniako are awestruck as they enter a new universe in \u201cThe Motion.\u201d All photos by Jay Yamada.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

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By WOODY WEINGARTEN<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Motion<\/em>, a new sci-fi dramedy, provides laughable and challenging theater while occasionally making audience members believe their brains are about to explode.<\/p>\n

In a good way.<\/p>\n

Obie-winning playwright Christopher Chen crams about eight tons of material into 105 intermission-less minutes at the Ashby Theater in Berkeley. He explores, for example, morality, memory, identity, emotions, science, and animal welfare vs. animal rights.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, and love.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s dubbed a \u201cmetatheatrical sci-fi fable\u201d is a five-character production with each of the Shotgun Players\u2019 actors trying to out-superb the others as they try to figure out what it means to be human. The backdrop, the first of several universes that are explored, is a debate stage.<\/p>\n

Dr. Alan James (played by David Siniako), \u201ca humane doctor,\u201d implies that critters have souls. To buoy his support of a ban on animal-testing, he describes in gory detail the vivisection of a bunny.<\/p>\n

Dr. Sarah Matthis (Erin Mei-Ling Stuart) counters with facts, leading with the notion that 44% of testing does \u201cno harm to animals of any kind\u201d and attempts to show that most experimentation is on lower forms. \u201cFish are used to study cancer,\u201d she reports, and \u201cworms are used to test Alzheimer\u2019s.\u201d She declares that animals are sentient creatures that shouldn\u2019t be mere tools in scientific research by humans. Along the way, she quotes 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant and cites an illustration of not knowing who to toss overboard when there are five people in a lifeboat that safely holds only four.<\/p>\n

Matthis\u2019 alternately cocky and insecure anti-ban partner, Prof. Neel Serrano (Soren Santos), believes the key to settling the debate is by determining how to eliminate suffering. A ban, he warns, might \u201chalt most medical experimentation in its tracks\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gabrielle Maalihan and Soren Santos provide a love undercurrent.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Prof. Lily Chan (Gabrielle Maalihan), perhaps the most susceptible to emotions and thereby the most vulnerable debater, admits at one point that she has \u201cthis thing where I can\u2019t allow myself to be happy.\u201d In a crisis, she simply feels \u201cso helpless.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moderator Jack Donovan (Erin Gould) futilely tries to keep the lid on the debate, circling back to the initial question when everything starts flying off the rails, with participants either talking over each other or flirting. He gets to deliver many \u2014 but by no means all \u2014 of the laugh-lines.<\/p>\n

James, white-bearded, distinguished, and nattily attired, tries swapping one-upmanship lines and concepts with Sarrano, but ends up angrily blurting out, \u201cPlease stop interrupting me.\u201d<\/p>\n

After loud claps of thunder and blinding lightning flashes, the four debaters are transported to an alternate world in which they are momentarily trapped behind invisible walls. Reading each other\u2019s thoughts, a concept that frightens all of them, is but a first step in a journey that leads to them evolving in other places where they learn to live in the present with AI as a sidekick.<\/p>\n

To make the presentation immersive, audience members get to vote on how the debate affected them.<\/p>\n

Playwright Chen is popular in the Bay Area. His works have been produced and developed by such companies as the American Conservatory Theater, Berkeley Rep, Magic Theatre, and SFPlayhouse,<\/p>\n

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Erin Mei-Ling Stuart (left), Gabrielle Maalihan (center) and David Siniako brave a bitter-cold snowstorm<\/span><\/strong><\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Artistic director Patrick Dooley founded the Shotgun Players in 1992 in, the website says, the basement of a pizza parlor with \u201c20 eager actors and a bucket of black paint.\u201d Their aim: \u201cto make great, affordable theater.\u201d In the following 12 years, the players performed in 44 different spaces before finding their permanent home on Ashby Avenue in Berkeley.<\/p>\n

In a post-show conversation after an opening week matinee of the world premiere, audience members cheerfully dove deeper into the morality issues \u2014 politely debating one another and, now and then, ignoring TDooley, who was moderating the half-hour bonus.<\/p>\n

During the conversation, he suggested that perhaps the audience might want to consider what the play\u2019s characters and they, as well, have learned about themselves. In the program, he advises theatergoers to retain \u201ca spirit of thoughtfulness and wonder. Stay open. Stay curious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both he and Chen make it virtually impossible to do otherwise.<\/p>\n

The Motion<\/em> will run through Oct. 12 at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley. Tickets: $23 to $80. Info: 510-841-6500, ext. 303, or boxoffice@shotgunplayers.org<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sherwood \u201cWoody\u201d Weingarten, a longtime voting member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at\u00a0voodee@sbcglobal.net<\/a> or on his websites, https:\/\/woodyweingarten.com<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0https:\/\/vitalitypress.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            By WOODY WEINGARTEN The Motion, a new sci-fi dramedy, provides laughable and challenging theater while occasionally making audience members believe their brains are about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":4.5,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-110379","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"