I started writing
LAST SHIP TO PROXIMA CENTAURI in 2017, back when the intentionally horrific conditions of refugee migrants detained along the border was the issue of the moment. I am an American of Chinese descent, so much so that I only speak Dim Sum and Mah Jong Chinese, if I'm being honest. The experience of the detained migrants is obviously far away from my life, and yet part of me couldn't help imagining myself in that situation. Being an American who is not in the white majority means being constantly aware that it could be taken away. The freedoms, the privileges, the belonging in this country … all the nice great things that we learned about in our school Social Studies classes. Will they be there for me after a few bad election cycles and an unlucky crisis event or two?
Have you ever had thoughts about that? If not, consider yourself lucky.
While I wanted to write something about the feelings brought about by the situation at the border, what right would I possibly have to do so? How would I write about such a thing that wouldn't seem abjectly ridiculous on its face?
The answer, of course, is science fiction.
I may be biased but for my money, no genre is as adept at being able to talk about issues in ways that circumvent the usual defenses that a reader or audience member would have than science fiction. From pop approaches like many
Star Trek episodes and
X-Men's extended race allegory, to
Dune's examination of political uprising, sci-fi has long been a home for work that can be both trenchant in its ruminations and … just plain fun. Sexy blue women! Mutant powers! Sand worms! But also, an extended analogy about the rise of fascism, on the down low.
This is an analysis that I have applied in hindsight to my play. To start, I just wanted to write a narrative about Americans being put in the same situations as the detained migrants. I imagined a ship carrying a payload of Americans in stasis, passengers on a re-settlement vessel that has traveled for thousands of years to the nearest inhabitable planet. The two pilots, the only beings awake on the vessel, make contact with the inhabitants of the colony of Earth expatriates who now live there. Their long-anticipated journey has been redeemed! And yet … And yet …
What if?
(The great defining principle of sci-fi, those two words: What if?)
What if … the people on the planet, the ones there already, the ones that vastly outnumber the people on the ship …
What if they don't want you there?
Because
Because of your skin color.
Because of your politics.
Because of the things people did in your country's name. Back in the old place. Even if it's 2,000 years ago? Even if it has nothing to do with you?
WTF do you do now?
Sorry to spoil the plot of my own play, which you should totally
buy,
read, and
produce, but that takes you into the second act, where you will meet the inhabitants of the planet, and figure out exactly why they might not quite want to welcome a spaceship full of 100,000 Americans to their teeming shore. If this seems like a heavy topic, like it's a bit much, well it kind of is, but also it's kind of gloriously silly. In my view, the joy of science fiction is getting to create your own world and populating it with the most batshit stuff you can think of. You get to say what of our entire culture and history is remembered by history if history is written by … well, not us. What if history is written by our frenemies?
As a result, in this play we got
Game of Thrones and
Frasier jokes, we have a wacked-out nursery rhyme that explains the settlers' origins. Jokes about China's love of bureaucracy. Tarantino movies being studied in universities in the "Classics" department. There's a silly infomercial I stuck in the middle for the hell of it. Starbucks coffee is a major plot point, and I paid three translators to help create the full canvas of the scope of what this brave new world should be. And I've become the second Reed College graduate playwright to write a post-apocalyptic play that references
The Simpsons. (Shoutout Anne Washburn.)
This play is fun. And it may give you nightmares. It's easier for me to imagine reaching another planet than it is for me to imagine evolving past the horrid bullshit we are currently mired in. I write this on the eve of the 2024 elections, and I want for this play to feel much less relevant in six months than it does now. (You'll understand when you read it.) I hope the play causes arguments between couples going to see the show, as they realize their partner identifies more with other characters than they expected (ones that they assumed were the villains). And also, your favorite set and costume designer that you know secretly would love to work on wacky space opera stuff. When this play debuted on stage at Portland Stage Co., I have never met a backstage group more enthused than the people I met there at getting to build spaceship and costume "aliens." "We've been looking forward to this all season!" I was told more than once. Science fiction has dominated other media for some time now for a reason.
And lastly, the Portland Stage production brought about the best, most cherished bit of feedback I've ever received from something I've written. More than any good review I've so far received in any publication, a teacher wrote in to Portland Stage after bringing their class to a student matinee. That teacher wrote: "Of all the many plays I've seen with students over the years, this one has sparked the most lively discussion — over lunch afterward, on the bus home, in class, and online. Everyone was impressed by the quality of the production, which is something we've come to expect from Portland Stage, but the ideas and conflicts embedded in this particular show make for a particularly rich 'text' to explore in conversation."
I hope you might feel the same way, too. With respect, I invite you to come aboard …
LAST SHIP TO PROXIMA CENTAURI.