'Last Ship to Proxima Centauri' at Convergence-Continuum is a Dark Sci-Fi Comedy That Doesn't Quite Hit

Moving to a new home can be quite stressful, especially when you arrive late. But usually it’s not that big a problem, you just make some bashful apologies and move on. But when you’re a few centuries late, that can cause some difficulties.

So it is in the sci-fi dark comedy “Last Ship to Proxima Centauri,” now at Convergence-Continuum Theater. This is an ambitious piece and it has some amusing moments. But the combination of heavy-handed lecturing, a fondness for repetition, and an Act Two that includes dialog spoken in Chinese and Spanish (translated to English on a screen) slows the pace of the show to a space walk.

As conceived by playwright Greg Lam the spaceship in question, called Arclight 27, is one of a massive fleet of ships launched 2000 years in the future, from an uninhabitable Earth to various welcoming planets in the universe. (The good news: According to the playwright, Earth has two more habitable millenia, which seems deliriously optimistic at this point.)

Unfortunately, due to a dust-up along the way, the space-time travelers have been delayed by a handful of centuries and their supposed new home, Proxima Centauri, has changed ownership. Now it is run by folks who don’t look kindly on a ship containing more than 100,000 passengers who are mostly white and privileged. Those Earth escapees are currently in a state of suspended animation—stacked like stunned carp, one would assume, somewhere in the ship’s hold.

Up in the cockpit, captain Addie (Amiee Collier) and pilot Morris (David L. Munnell) are in communication with those running Proxima Centauri. But the Centaurians (Proximates?) are in a snit and deny the ship landing privileges and soon begin firing at the intruders, forcing the crew to execute a forced landing.

All that action described above only happens in the audience’s imagination, since the Con-Con stage is smaller than a mid-sized Starship holodeck. This turns the first act into a rather static affair since all the actors can do is stare at their computer and look concerned.

During that time, talented performers Collier and Munnell play their roles with appropriate determination and fortitude. But director Cory Molner doesn’t initially set the tone for the play, so neither the audience isn’t entirely sure if this is to be taken seriously or not.

Turns out, the play could really begin with Act Two, in which we meet the Centaurian named Tunde (a refreshingly laid-back Nnamdi Okpala), who boards the ship and begins to flesh out why the Arclight was forbidden to land. The rather bemused Tunde, who is joined later by Amanda Rowe-Van Allen as nasty Centaurian Paz, give the entire production a needed lift.

But this is also when playwright Lam focuses his attention on the issues of white privilege and cultural assimilation, as the characters spell out the terrible things that white people have done to deserve being banned from polite Proxima Centauri society. God knows those are right and proper targets, but they aren’t thrashed as they should be due to static staging, a lack of dramatic momentum, and still more repetition.

The fifth member of the cast, Simon Rogers, plays Henry Hirano, a Japanese stowaway who got his ticket from his highly credentialed father. Rogers is handed the task of representing all the non-white people Caucasians have dumped on forever, and he does the best he can in that impossible situation.

Last Ship has a lot to say, but most of it covers familiar territory, so the irony of the tables being turned on white people isn’t as tasty and satisfying as it might be. And despite the best efforts of the cast, a potentially entertaining and trenchant play grinds to a not-so-satisfying halt by the final curtain.

Last Ship to Proxima Centauri
Through June 15 at Convergence-Continuum’s Liminis Theater, 2438 Scranton Rd., convergence-continuum.org.

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This article appears in May 22 – Jun 5, 2024.