[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of SPACE EXPLORATION BECAUSE SPACE EXPLORATION BECAUSE EXPLORATION!!! written and performed by Krystle Tugadi, directed by Scarlett Kim at Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024.
This show is not exactly what I expected. Although to be fair, all expectations should be left well and truly beyond the perimeter of Hollywood when it comes to Fringe. They will only cloud your vision and understanding of what is usually fairly radical and experimental work. But Fringe is exactly where that work should be.
SPACE EXPLORATION BECAUSE SPACE EXPLORATION BECAUSE EXPLORATION!!! is a strange and compelling show. Although there are connections to space in the literal sense, the only character on stage has a husband who is actually in space. Writer/performer Krystle Tugadi developed the show around her experience in acting class. Asked to take ‘space’ in class – which I think might have meant for her to occupy her own piece of the universe fully. In those terms, this play is an exploration of that. Krystle’s character seems to be talking to a friend in her home. A home she shares with her baby and, until he left, her husband, who is off in space doing his own exploring. Meanwhile she is abandoned with her child. Feeling a combination of freedom and a shocking sense of untethering. All while trying to become the mother others expect her to be.
Is she suffering from depression? I would say definitely. But the stress of being a mother is often explained away as postpartum depression like it’s an illness…when it could just as easily be regular depression. Or just exhaustion. It is a 24 hours a day job after all and with a partner literally in another galaxy, there’s no backup. But the effect all this is for us to wonder what is real and what is not. She talks to her husband through a strange paraphernalia and is it make believe? Is he dead? Is he real? Do we ever know?
As the play unfolds and Krystle’s character becomes more and more distressed and the baby cries. And cries and cries and cries. It’s unnerving and I suppose it’s meant to be. We are meant to experience the level of despair that she is experiencing. It’s a very effective way of bringing the audience fully into the experience. As a mother, I know that sound and how it gets into your bones. The strangeness of her reactions seems compellingly real, how she can ‘uncouple’ like this, much to the horror of her guest. But who’s to say how anyone would cope with all of that? The point perhaps is that as she connects herself and her own center, it’s not through her child, it’s not through her husband, it’s through finding her own space.
It’s a fascinating concept and one that runs the gamut of emotions on stage and in the audience. It felt almost immersive. Perhaps that’s because she was alone and the cries made her seem even more alone. I can totally relate.
Krystle Tugadi with direction by Scarlett Kim has created something visceral and poignant. I think an audience can take so many different messages from it. It would depend of the individual experiences that we bring with us, but it’s a very, very compelling play full of multimedia and yet none of it gets in the way of Krystle’s intuitive performance.
Don’t you just love what Fringe can bring to the stage?!
When:
June 19 at 7:00pm
June 23 at 12:30pm
June 30 at 1:00pm
Where:
6760 Lexington Ave, Hollywood