WE CAN ALL AGREE TO PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED (Tiny Dynamite and InterAct Theatre Company): A Philadelphia world-premiere comedy

Alice Yorke, Corinna Burns, and Dave Johnson in WE CAN ALL AGREE TO PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED (Photo credit: Ilana Caplan)
Alice Yorke, Corinna Burns, and Dave Johnson in WE CAN ALL AGREE TO PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED (Photo credit: Ilana Caplan)

Season 4 of Tiny Dynamite’s month-long happy-hour series A Play, A Pie and A Pint concludes with its first commissioned work, WE CAN ALL AGREE TO PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED, by emerging local playwright Emma Goidel. Presented in collaboration with InterAct Theatre Company and directed with satirical abandon by Kittson O’Neill, the world premiere comedy is set in a Siberian lab, where Liz (Corinna Burns) and Maya (Alice Yorke)—two ethically-challenged American scientists–decide to manufacture specimens of a newly discovered virus, supposedly frozen for ages in the now melting Arctic tundra.

Dave Johnson and J Hernandez in WE CAN ALL AGREE TO PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED (Photo credit: Ilana Caplan)
Dave Johnson and J Hernandez in WE CAN ALL AGREE TO PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED (Photo credit: Ilana Caplan)

The women’s serious, albeit seriously misguided mission, is to warn the world about global warming and to advance their own careers, international fame, and fortune (Liz notes that “a sexy lab report” could create a “funding resurgence” for them). Their ambitious lies, both in the confined quarters of the lab and in their tightly intertwined love lives with assistants Andrew (Dave Johnson) and Lincoln (J Hernandez), launch the less-than-brilliant men into a laughably improbable sequence of misunderstandings, confusion, and paranoia, as they uncover evidence, unwittingly falsify documents, and attempt to ascertain the true contents of a mysterious package and the truth about the sexual liaisons of Liz, Maya, and the unseen Russian Boris.

Sound wacky? It is, and the hilarious ensemble fully embraces the wild farce in all its scientific nerdiness, personal infidelities, and professional misconduct with spot-on comedic timing and full-out physical humor for a fun-filled hour of laughs. And with your $15 ticket, you also get a slice of pizza and a drink! [Red Room, Society Hill Playhouse, 507 S 8th St.] October 23-26, 2014; tinydynamite.org.

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