Few science-fiction authors command as much reverence as Ray Bradbury (“Fahrenheit 451”) or Kurt Vonnegut (“Slaughterhouse-Five”). The writers never collaborated, but they each wove vivid, visionary tales in which humanity’s worst instincts result in technology run amuck, totalitarian laws, and environmental collapse.
For literary theatre troupe Word for Word, which pays tribute to both authors in “Absolutely Science Fiction!” playing at Z Space through July 19, the work of both authors has frightening parallels to modern headlines that are impossible to ignore.
“Neither Bradbury nor Vonnegut were particularly comfortable with their works being labeled as ‘sci-fi’ and would likely have preferred today’s more popular term of ‘speculative fiction,’” says Word for Word member and show director Delia MacDougall. “Bradbury wrote, ‘People ask me to predict the future when all I want to do is prevent it.’”
Word for Word will be paying tribute to both authors in “Absolutely Science Fiction!,” which opened June 27 at Z Space. The troupe is performing “The Veldt,” Bradbury’s 1950 short about parents who let their automated home care for their child, and “The Big Space Fuck,” Vonnegut’s 1972 satire about rockets carrying human DNA and children suing their parents. As is Word for Word’s practice , the stories will be read just as the authors wrote them, with actors bringing the characters and scenes to life.
MacDougall, who began this project with only a passing familiarity with Vonnegut’s work, says she was struck by the gallows humor of his words, and their pertinence. “I find Vonnegut’s comedic nihilism a refreshing counterpoint to the absurdity of this current moment,” she says, “this headlong rush into an AI future that we have been warned will bring about human obsolescence and environmental devastation. Meanwhile, those same billionaires who race for AI prominence assure us that their penis-shaped rockets will provide us with a future on Mars, even as their spaceships spectacularly explode on the launch pad.”
The Big Space Fuck: The President shows off his rocket. Pictured: Ryan Tasker. Photo: Jessica Palopoli
Although San Francisco’s current tech abundance offered plenty of cutting-edge design inspirations, the director opted for an intentionally anachronistic look for “The Veldt.” As MacDougall explains, portraying advanced, “retro-futuristic” tech wasn’t nearly as challenging as reading decades-old stories unaltered.
Bradbury’s story takes its name from the South African landscape, which he portrays as idyllic by the story’s all-white characters. MacDougall and set designer Kate Boyd decided that a tongue-in-cheek approach softened the more cringe elements in the story.
“‘The Veldt’ is problematic not only for this embrace of a colonialist vision of Africa, but for the gender politics that most definitely belong to a world of the past,” she says. “There is no updating it for a modern audience while keeping to the Word for Word form. Instead, [our] design emphasizes a sensibility of the past, without a nostalgia for it. The saturated colors have a distancing effect, like a butterfly pinned to a board. It is a world stuck in time.”
The Veldt: Lydia is comforted by the automated chair. Pictured: Nicole Odell. Photo credit: Jessica Palopoli
MacDougall insists that although both “Absolutely Science Fiction!” stories have their flaws – whether patriarchal stereotyping or overt cynicism – they actually share a common hope that humanity can and should evade its worst potential fate.
“The same year Vonnegut wrote ‘The Big Space Fuck’ he spoke at the very first Earth Day,” she explains. “Americans demanded action on the environmental crisis and the EPA, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act became law. The Superfund was created to clean up toxic waste sites. DDT was banned. Proving that human action can pull us back from the brink of a dystopian future.”
Word for Word’s Absolutely Science Fiction! runs through Sunday, Jul. 19 at Z Space, San Francisco. Tickets are $15-$75.
