Review of Forget Me Not Theatre Company's The Impossible Adventures of Supernova Jones

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called The Impossible Adventures of Supernova Jones. It was written by Aaron Senser and it was directed by Emelia Zuckerman. It was about this guy named Supernova Jones (Brendan Mulhern) who was a space explorer. He had a robot named S.A.M. (Tom Murphy) and he worked with a Space Cowboy named Hash (Evan Henderson). And they were fighting against the sons of Cain who were a scary alien race who were like clones, kind of. And they were all played by the same guy (Justin Martin Fill). And Supernova Jones has to leave his wife Evelyn (Jill Matel) behind because the world has been "destroyed" and he has been employed by the Commander (Gary Smiley) to find the center of the universe. But the entire time he is keeping a secret from himself. This play is about family, love, and imagination, and I enjoyed it a lot.

My theory about the Sons of Cain is that they all wanted to look like their leader, so they all made themselves look the same. The Sons of Cain also seemed to be very good fighters (fight direction by Henderson). The fights were super crazy! I loved how intimate they actually seemed and how you could hear them smack down on the ground. I was like, "Noooo!" They were so crazy good. There was a chess scene between Supernova Jones and the last of the Sons of Cain. (Were there just men in the Sons of Cain? If so, they weren't a very productive race. No wonder they died out so quickly!) In the scene, Supernova Jones was getting beat at chess, until the cleverest thing happened where the Son of Cain beat him and Jones said, "No, you didn't." And that is where the clever part comes in. The clever part is...you have to see the show! You don't expect a chess game to be the climax in a space movie. You expect it to be a laser battle or something like that. So it is completely different than you think it would be. I thought it was cool.

The robot is like the best friend of Supernova Jones and you find out later that he is even more than a friend. I liked how cute he was. He was kind of like a little kid. And I loved S.A.M.'s signature drink. It was a cup of oil, which I found so hilarious. Supernova Jones' drink was something like an intergalactic on the rocks and I thought that was really funny too. The robot was basically like his best friend and they did everything together. That made me feel like the robot was an actual person. One of my favorite parts was when he was talking on facetime basically and saying, "Nope. You can't speak to him because he's asleep" and the villain didn't believe him. So then he was just like, "He's asleep" and would gesture toward Jones in a really impatient way like, "Duh. He's asleep." I liked that the robot makes you think this is going to be a goofy space adventure, but then it ends up that character is more bittersweet when you find out what the real story is.

Evelyn was the wife of Supernova Jones and she was on “Mars.” Supernova Jones has taken her there because it is the only place people can live now that the Earth has been destroyed. And he talks to her on facetime and tells her to put on the glasses and you’ll be here with me as a hologram. And she does and she spins out in this beautiful turquoise see-through plastic outfit (costumes by Delena Bradley). I thought it looked really awesome. I was like, “Wow! She looks really cool in that.” Before she was just a video, but suddenly she becomes an actual person. It was cool how much of the show used videos (by Dan Haberkorn) and how well they timed it so it didn’t look weird. They also had an intro like an old tv show that was on a screen and that was really cool. It looked like an old-fashioned tv show like Star Trek.

People who would like this show are people who like Star Trek, cups of oil, and chess. I think that people should definitely go see this show. I thought it was a really fun experience.

Photos: Chris Zoubris