Five teenagers (Blossom, Peter, Oliver, Lola, Abigail) sixteen years old, some orphaned recently, some all their lives, find themselves in an isolated, profoundly bizarre dwelling. Like the well-known Escher drawing, it is composed of stairs. They lead nowhere. No walls or rooms. Blossom is pushy and comes from wealth. Peter is painfully shy. Lola is skeptical and contentious. Oliver is confident and encourages Peter. Abigail is passive and sweet-natured. The five are thrown together, trying to figure how to work together, under such strange circumstances. There’s no privacy. The “house” dispenses food at odd intervals. A device emerges that concocts light and sound patterns. The teens must follow a series of particular steps and movements whenever it appears, to keep the food coming.
For lack of a better word, the house becomes more “demanding.” As Lola and Peter question the wisdom of cooperating with this mechanism, the other three become bullies. They try and intimidate Lola and Peter, and turn more violent in nature. As food becomes more scarce, their situation gets more desperate.
The characters, diverse and disparate, are all nonetheless disenfranchised. They are dropped into circumstances that create constant need. They cannot rest, or cultivate a sense of nest or refuge. They don’t know when the next meal is coming. They are encouraged to punish anyone who questions authority. In this case an inhuman, bloodless, sort of algorithm, devoid of context or reassurance. Summarily subjected to deprivation, they separate into tribes. One tribe loses its compassion, its warmth, its empathy.
We might say House of Stairs takes the turbulence of American life in the 2020’s and reconstructs its essence. It’s structural dynamics. Adapted by Director Jason Johnson-Spinos from the William Warner Sleator III novel of the same name: House of Stairs is a carefully conceived allegory for our current dystopia. Which is to say the very sharp Mr. Johnson-Spinos recognized Sleator’s vision and the parallels between his narrative and our present day clusterfuck.
Outcry Theatre has a gift for consistently producing drama that is intriguing, surprising, challenging and meticulous. The cast of House of Stairs is spot on. Polished but authentic. Intuitive but poised. Professional but present. In some ways it harkens back to The Twilight Zone. The Outer Limits. Americans have been living with dystopian content in their entertainment now, for quite some time. It’s not easy to come up with something new. House of Stairs has that chilling, enervating tone that mocks the ugliness of efficiency for its own sake, questions the need for mob rule, and begs us to pay attention.
Outcry Theatre presents House of Stairs. Playing July 15th-24th, 2022. Addison Theatre Centre, Studio Theatre, 15650 Addison Road, Addison, Texas 75001. 972-450-6241. ww.outcrytheatre.com