The Pod is ostensibly about a training exercise meant to make sure you and your mission partner can work together on the long voyage to another planet. Which is to say, that is absolutely what the show is about, but also kind of not really because it has so much more on its mind.
Written and directed by Katelyn Schiller (Lucid Dramatics) and Nick Rheinwald-Jones (Spy Brunch) who previously worked together on both Safehouse ’77 and The Sideshow, The Pod possesses a similar level of polish. It also shares some DNA with Schiller and Lucid Dramatics’ Fringe 2017 show, Quantum Entanglement. And, in some ways, its bears a strange resemblance to Fringe darling A(partment 8).
The premise of The Pod, as noted above, is simple (as simple as traveling light years through space can be). You’re training for a 20 year long mission with Ellie (Schiller), your robot partner (obviously, how else would you get there in one piece), and Macora, the company behind the space travel and robot technology, needs to make sure you can work together. Your new robot friend thinks the simulation and all of its scenarios are real, so you need to act like they are so Macora can get a good test. And off you go.
The main space of the show is a small room with white curtains. It will be your simulation spaceship for 20-ish minutes. The effects used to make it feel like a journey through space are really just an upgraded version of a children’s game. With light and sound cues subbing in for flashlights and blasting-off-mouth-noises, they set the scene effectively and give off precisely the right amount of illusion. A detailed set would have taken away from what Schiller and Rheinwald-Jones are trying to do with this show (and probably would have broken the budget to boot).
And what exactly is the show trying to do?
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The Pod delves into the ideas of domesticity and creation and exploration and trying to understand what those things mean to a robot learning from a human. The scenarios Ellie learns from aren’t as explicitly sci-fi as the show itself, not that it’s uncommon to approach these themes in sci-fi stories. And the simplicity of the set means that the focal point is on both those themes and Ellie. Schiller is your north star (or Proxima Centauri B, as it were) through this story. Playing a robot has got to be difficult enough for real, live people and playing one that subtly changes over the course of a mere 20 minutes has got to be even more challenging.
But Schiller is more than up to the task and layers in new dimensions as Ellie learns from you and processes what’s happening. The format of the show means she needs to reorient every few minutes, which means finding disappointment, elation, and fear at a rapid fire pace. It pays off and makes for a performance, and an experience, that deftly lands its touching and emotional beats. And what happens when you leave the simulation is likely to be one of the more powerful moments of this year’s Fringe.
If you haven’t considered scanning the QR code on the back of the program, you should, even if you wait a day or two and let the show sink in. It offers an extension of the world building done in The Pod, from the fun pre-show videos featuring the creators’ parents, Rheinwald-Jones’ work as Dr. Malin, and the story behind Ellie the robot.
The Pod runs through the end of June as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2019. Tickets are sold out. Wait list information is available at info@podimmersive.com.
View our guide to everything immersive at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2019.
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