The Tech Theater Company made an effort to bring the work of well-known science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin to life on the weekend of November 12. That Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, they enacted the play “Vaster than Empires,” a theater adaptation of four of Lu Guin’s short stories by Roger Held. Instead of any action, however, the play was done in a similar format as a radio drama. Nine podiums stood on the McArdle stage, and as the actors spoke, a spotlight shined on the person speaking and whomever they might be speaking to.
The first story that the actors performed, “Vaster than Empires and More Slow,” takes place within Le Guin’s Hainish cycle, in which a vast human empire colonized many planets (including Earth), and later collapsed, with the colony planets forgetting about the others. “Vaster than Empires” tells the story of a group of explorers who seek to learn more about a planet found on the edge of known space, which seems to consist of all plants and fungi with no animals. As the crew explores the new planet, their conflicts with each other provide a central point in the drama of the story.
The second, “The Barrow,” is a freestanding work, and the only one out of the four that is not from the anthology The Wind’s Twelve Quarters. Here, a visiting priest to a small country in 12th-century Eastern Europe is shocked by mysterious events that seem to happen around the castle, events that the townspeople attribute to a mysterious place called the Barrow, whose people worship an entity named “Odin.”
The third, “The Darkness Box,” is a variation of the Pandora’s Box tale, in which a prince unwittingly unleashes darkness into a world that had until then held only light. And the final, “Those Who Walk Away From Omelas,” tells of a city where people live wonderful lives and strife is almost unheard-of, but the existence of which is seemingly dependent on the continued suffering of one child.
While the format initially seemed odd for theater, it was used effectively and the performance was well received by the audience. Most important was the actors’ own success in playing their parts well, without flat reads. Adding to that was dramatic lighting and sound effects to underscore the spoken performances. A screen showing an image to reflect the spoken dialogue finished off the effect.
The Tech Theater Company performs several shows each year. Their next performance will be David Auburn’s “Proof,” which will be shown February 11-13 and 18-19 in the McArdle Theatere.