The Aliens (play)
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''The Aliens'' is a play by
Annie Baker Annie Baker (born April 1981) is an American playwright and teacher who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her play ''The Flick.'' Among her works are the Shirley, Vermont plays, which take place in the fictional town of Shirley: ''Circle Mirror Tr ...
. The play is set in Vermont, as are three of Baker's other plays, ''
Body Awareness ''Body Awareness'' is a one-act play by Annie Baker. The play premiered Off-Broadway in 2008. Background This play marked the Off-Broadway debut for Annie Baker. The play takes place at Shirley State College in Shirley, Vermont, which "evokes A ...
,'' ''
Circle Mirror Transformation ''Circle Mirror Transformation'' is a play by Annie Baker, centered on drama classes at a community center in Vermont. The play opened Off-Broadway in 2009 and received the Obie Award for Best New American Play. Productions ''Circle Mirror Trans ...
'', and ''Nocturama''. ''The Aliens'' premiered
Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...
in 2010 and won the
Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...
for Best New American Play, with Baker's ''Circle Mirror Transformation''.


Productions

''The Aliens'' premiered
Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...
at the
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Rattlestick Theater is a non-profit off-Broadway theater based in the West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The traditional b ...
on April 22, 2010 and closed on May 23, 2010. Directed by
Sam Gold Sam Gold is an American theater director and actor. He has directed both musicals and plays, on Broadway and Off-Broadway. He won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for ''Fun Home''. Early life Gold was raised in Westchester an ...
, the cast featured
Michael Chernus Michael Louis Chernus (born August 8, 1977) is an American actor. He has acted on film, television, and the stage. He is perhaps best known for his role as Cal Chapman on the Netflix original comedy-drama series ''Orange Is the New Black'' (2013 ...
,
Dane DeHaan Dane William DeHaan ( ; born February 6, 1986) is an American actor known for his roles as Andrew Detmer in ''Chronicle'' (2012), Lucien Carr in '' Kill Your Darlings'' (2013), Harry Osborn / Green Goblin in ''The Amazing Spider-Man 2'' (2014), ...
and Erin Gann.Hernandez, Ernio
"Annie Baker's Aliens Land Off-Broadway at Rattlestick April 14"
playbill.com, April 14, 2010
The play had a reading in April 2009 at the play-reading series, Out Loud by Ars Nova. The play premiered in London at the Bush Theatre in September 2010.Taylor, Paul

''Independent'', 23 September 2010
Among United States regional productions, the play ran in
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
at Company One in October 2010, as part of the "Shirley, VT. Play Festival", which produced three of Baker's plays, all set in the fictional town of Shirley, Vermont.Aucoin, Do
"STAGE REVIEW. Challenging play spares words but not emotions"
boston.com, October 26, 2010
The West Coast premiere was produced at the
San Francisco Playhouse San Francisco Playhouse (formerly SF Playhouse) is a non-profit theater company in San Francisco, California, founded in 2003 by Bill English and Susi Damilano. The theater stages nine plays yearly, including Broadway plays, musicals, and world ...
in 2012. Directed by Lila Neugebauer, it starred Brian Miskell as Evan, Peter O'Connor as Jasper, and Haynes Thigpen as KJ. Later in 2012, Neugebauer would go on to stage a production at Washington D.C.'s
Studio Theatre A black box theater is a simple performance space, typically a square room with black walls and a flat floor. The simplicity of the space allows it to be used to create a variety of configurations of stage and audience interaction. The black ...
, again featuring Brian Miskell and Peter O'Connor, as well as Scot McKenzie as KJ. It was also produced in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
at the Red Orchid Theatre in 2013.
Wabash College Wabash College is a private liberal arts men's college in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Founded in 1832 by several Dartmouth College graduates and Midwestern leaders, it enrolls nearly 900 students. The college offers an undergraduate liberal arts cur ...
included the play as part of their 2014-2015 theater season. The Ion Theatre Company in
San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
included the play in their 2015 season. Co-directed by Glenn Paris and Claudio Raygoza, it starred Tyler Oakley as Evan, Reed Willard as Jasper, and
Brian Butler Brian Leslie Butler (born 16 February 1948) is a Welsh former rugby union and professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1960s and 1970s. He played representative level rugby union (RU) for a 'Wales XV', and at club level for Feli ...
as KJ.


Plot overview

The play takes place in a small town in
Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
. Two thirtyish men, Jasper and KJ, meet to discuss music and poetry in an alley behind a coffee shop. They discuss their band, which was called (among many things) ''The Aliens''. KJ has dropped out of college and Jasper has not finished high school, but is writing a novel. When Evan, a high school student who works at the coffee shop arrives, the men "decide to teach him everything they know." The writer of an article in the ''
Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' noted: "At least one-third of her play 'The Aliens' should be silent, uncomfortably so, a note in the text says."


Critical response

Charles Isherwood, in his review for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', wrote that ''The Aliens'' is "a gentle and extraordinarily beautiful new play". He noted "Ms. Baker may just have the subtlest way with exposition of anyone writing for the theater today. Through the small details and telling asides we learn the fundamentals of this friendship, founded on a mutual sense of generalized alienation. At the risk of appearing hyperbolic, I’ll go so far as to say there is something distinctly Chekhovian in the way her writing accrues weight and meaning simply through compassionate, truthful observation... her subjects in 'The Aliens' are mighty indeed: no less than love and death, and how these two facets of human existence are woven into the fabric of life, the first sometimes unacknowledged or undivulged, the second ineluctable and often unforeseen. To say any more would be unfair, for the second act of this seemingly slight play takes a turn that is quietly devastating." The ''Theatermania'' reviewer wrote that ''The Aliens'' "is another offbeat, slyly intriguing drama with comedy... There are seemingly more minutes of silence than there are of dialogue in Baker's script; the leanness makes strange and intriguing even the most banal exchanges. The effect is purposeful -- there's a mildly hazed authenticity that sounds like how people might talk while circled around a bong." The ''Variety'' reviewer wrote that "In another world, “The Aliens” (one of many discarded names for the rock band that Jasper and KJ never got off the ground) would be another sensitive short story about the inarticulateness of a sad generation of lost boys. The slender story has more heft on the stage, but given the lack of action and conflict, along with all those self-indulgent pauses and attenuated stretches of silence, it doesn’t quite measure up as a full-length play." The reviewer for the ''News-Herald'' (Ohio), writing about a production in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, observed that "Her style is that of a slow pace -- her works are insightful, with pauses for thought, and silence for introspection. Lighting and smoking of a cigarette, sitting and looking at nothing, strumming a guitar -- these are all devices to allow for meaningful thought. She develops ideas through subtlety, not screaming or excessive drama... ''The Aliens,'' like most of Baker’s works, is more character study than plot-driven." In a review at ''
The San Diego Union Tribune ''The San Diego Union-Tribune'' is a metropolitan daily newspaper published in San Diego, California, that has run since 1868. Its name derives from a 1992 merger between the two major daily newspapers at the time, ''The San Diego Union'' and ...
'', James Hebert said the play was "well acted and nuanced, if not completely satisfying."


Awards and nominations

Baker won the
Obie Award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...
for Best New American Play (with a check for $1,000), for ''The Aliens'', jointly with Baker's ''
Circle Mirror Transformation ''Circle Mirror Transformation'' is a play by Annie Baker, centered on drama classes at a community center in Vermont. The play opened Off-Broadway in 2009 and received the Obie Award for Best New American Play. Productions ''Circle Mirror Trans ...
''. The play also won the Obie Award for Directing (Sam Gold) and Performance (Dane DeHaan). ''The Aliens'' was a finalist for the
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize established in 1978, is the largest and oldest playwriting prize for women+ writing for English-speaking theatre. Named for Susan Smith Blackburn (1935–1977), alumna of Smith College, who died of breast cancer. W ...
for 2009-2010. "Blackburn Prize by Date"
blackburnprize.org, accessed April 20, 2014


References


External links


''The Aliens'', Dramatists Play Service
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aliens 2010 plays American plays Plays set in Vermont