Fringe Review: Unbridled Futurism

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Photo credit: John Breggar

Unbridled Futurism is a new work of mixed media including live music and video elements. The one man show was conceived by Nick Di Gaetano as an attempt to reconcile his thoughts on emergent technologies, space and socio-political issues and make predictions for the future. The performance  brings together the stories he tells himself and the songs he writes into a cohesive live performance.

The play tells the story of an expendible astronaut who is the first man to break the light speed barrier. However he is now stuck shifting through parallel earths with only the A.I. voice of Mission Control in his brain. He just wants to get home to his wife and cat.

When in Toronto on Garbage-Earth, he meets himself and smart-phone wielding racoons who want to distroy humanity. A chase ensues until he leaves the audience to be the racoons next victims.

Di Gaetano picks up his guitar to delivery six original songs that help tell the story. I loved the quip that guitar playing is now a requirement for all astronauts since Col. Hadfield. Di Gaetano says  “I've been working on them (songs) for a while. I'm also excited for audiences to see the video components I've created and my bit as an iPhone wielding raccoon.”

“This piece has evolved over the past two years with me writing short stories and songs and presenting them live at Stand-Up comedy shows, Sketch Shows and Storytelling Shows. Although originally conceived as stand-alone pieces, they eventually started to coalesce into an entire world that I was building in my head. Taking this from bits and pieces to a whole has been an exciting and sometimes frustrating endeavour, but ultimately rewarding.”

The performance still feels like a bunch of stories shoved loosely together. Presenting a science-fiction play is difficult because we are so used to seeing  spectacular special effects in the movies. In absence of these on a live stage, the story-line needs to be well developed. I am sure that as Di Gaetano continues to perform that it will solidify.

I applaud Di Gaetano for taking up the challenge of putting his thoughts on stage. It is great that we have a Fringe Festival that supports presentations of developing new works.

Playing at the Arts Court at 2 Daly Avenue.