21st Play - Are There Penguins in Space? by Rachel Saruski

I found this one on another New Play Exchange rabbit hole journey … I mean, how can you resist this title?

Summary: "Lola meets a strange man in her kitchen one morning before school, and when her sister Jaime goes to find her, Lola has been kidnapped. As Jaime tries to find Lola, her world unravels around her, and she learns that life is never what it seems to be. Are There Penguins in Space? is a play about the meaning of family, explorations of the self, and of course, penguins." (New Play Exchange)

Loved: The title. I loved the title - I read this play because I loved the title. I loved 6 year old Lola from the beginning, waking her sister Jaime up to ask the very important question of whether penguins can fly. The importance of the title is clear right from the beginning, and although the playwright has not given us all the pieces of that particular puzzle yet, we trust that they will come. I really dislike spending the whole play wondering what the title means. This playwright truly does right by her title - not only does she give us more clues later in the play, the full meaning is revealed at the ending. More playwrights should focus on this kind of good title-work! The relationship between Lola and Jaime is sweet and we automatically want to see things work out well for them, even though we can see that their life is not easy. Lola is a bright kid who faces most things optimistically, although, like a normal kid, she gets upset occasionally. As we realize that Jaime, at only 17, is the only parent either of them have, we appreciate Lola's sunny optimism even more. *** SPOILER *** I appreciated that Jackson (Lola's father) was excited about being a father again, and then we find out that he didn't really want to leave in the first place, but was pushed out by Lola and Jaime’s drug addicted mother. I was ultimately glad that the playwright did not succumb to the temptation to allow the happy ending of everyone living at home with Mom and Jackson. To that end, I was glad that Anne (the addicted Mom) went off and left the other three. That was a surprise, and sad for the some of the characters, but I think it was the better playwrighting choice.

What I didn’t Love: Well, I have to say picking a play by its title bit me on this one. I didn't realize that it was a play about addiction. Not that there's a problem with that - those stories need to be told - but I didn’t feel like this one broke any new ground with that subject. I really hated the scene when the "unknown" Man basically just walks into Jaime and Lola's apartment, which is likely what the playwright intended, but the amount of concern I felt was more discomfort than I wanted. Lola sees the Man, asks who he is, and he says "You don't know me, but I'm a family friend." Ack. Especially when he then says "We're gonna play a game okay? But it'll only work if you're quiet." I was expecting this play to turn into some awful pedophilia thing. Fortunately it didn't. However, the Man *** SPOILER *** (who turns out to be Jackson) takes Lola with him, leaving poor Jaime believing that the child has been kidnapped, which of course she has. I didn't like that. The play talks about Jaime going to the police, but wouldn't the police give her a hard time about being an underage parent? It just feels like there may be a plot hole here. Each character has a moment (Jaime has several) in the play where they have a long monologue to the audience "in the void." This is a good way to get exposition out, but it feels like there could be better ways to tell the characters' stories. I will say that there is more specificity in those monologues than in the rest of the play, so we do learn what each character is really thinking. I just feel like all of these characters are drawn a little too generally, and the play could benefit from more specific and unusual things about each of them. There are moments of specificity, but since the story is not really a new one, I want the characters to be quite unique, and they just aren't distinctive enough.

Overall: This was not my favorite play that I have read. It felt relatively predictable and like a story I had seen before in a Lifetime movie. Not that it’s not a story worth telling, but it just wasn't something that I personally enjoy. I will say that part of the ending surprised me, so ultimately it was not as predictable as it felt originally. This is not a bad play at all, just not something that really excited me, both because of the nature of the story that wasn’t my cup of tea, and because of characters who didn't feel terribly distinctive in a way that stirred my imagination as I read the play. Finding the unique ways to tell the story and draw the characters with more specificity is something this talented but young playwright will learn as she practices her craft more. That being said, she picked a great title and wove it through the story well!

Here’s a link to Google Sheets with more info about the play: Play a Day Sheet