SF Playhouse continues its innovative and challenging season with the West Coast premiere of WIREHEAD by Matt Benjamin and Logan Brown.
If you could have brain implant that would raise your intelligence to astonishing levels and give you every imaginable edge on the competition, would you go for it? If this technology were available, who should have access to it? What should it cost? What would it feel like? What about side effects?
In Benjamin and Brown's clever, politically savvy and psychologically acute script, these questions are raised, then given a persuasive physical reality in the stunningly good design by SF founder Bill English. The physical reality of the implants and their effect on the users (victims?) will haunt you for weeks after seeing this play, if you are anything like me.
Craig Marker and Gabriel Marin are right on target as yuppie account executives whose corporate fortunes are threatened by "wirehead" Hammy (a funny and frightening performance by Cole Alexander Smith, a less talented colleague who has benefitted from the new technology. Scott Coopwood plays a radio talk show host in the Howard Stern mode who functions as a kind of Greek course as the plot thickens. Ultimately, sides must be taken in what soon looks like a potential war between "humans" and "wireheads" who, perhaps, are becoming something less than human.
All this comes at the audience at a fast and brilliant pace leaving us breathless and provoked. SF Playhouse continues to set a high bar for innovative theatre in San Francisco. This weekend is your last chance to see this remarkable production. Take it.
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