There’s a legitimate school of rehabilitative thought that says many sex offenders can’t change their impulses — they only can learn to self-regulate their behavior and understand how consequences for the victims render their own pleasurable expression dangerously immoral. So what, then, to do with the growing possibilities offered by the virtual pornographic landscapes opening up before us at every moment?
Will these virtual worlds — rapidly becoming more and more of a sensual simulacrum for our offline reality — offer a chance for deviants of all kinds to enact their darkest feelings and passions in a world without consequences, and without victims?
That seems almost inevitable. To some extent, it’s already taking place, suggesting that the virtual soon will become the primary home for human sexual pleasure of all stripes, including the darkest and most violent. But the question behind the challenging, 90-minute play called "The Nether," which opened Monday night at A Red Orchid Theatre in Old Town, is whether society will see that as a helpful safety valve that might prevent criminal activity or a heinous virtual culture that will legitimize the abhorrent. As a character in the play notes: "Who are we when we interact with no consequence?"
Who indeed.
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Penned by Jennifer Haley, a writer with an interest in technology and ethics, "The Nether" has been seen in London and New York. Monday was my second trip into its disturbing world — I saw it previously at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C. But the piece has not been seen in Chicago.
It will be, for many, too disturbing to watch. At the beginning of the play, we see a webmaster of a virtual realm called The Hideaway being called to task by an investigator (Ashley Neal) for what goes on in his fantastical evocation of Victorian innocence, where the avatar of a young girl (played by Maya Lou Hlava) runs around a lush garden offering all stripes of play with the adult guests, including the opportunity to wreak violence on her body (she isn’t real; she always can rejuvenate herself). This man (played, with apt creepiness, by Guy Van Swearingen) has attracted the attention of what seems to be the feds, or some other investigative force from an offline world that is fast losing ground to its virtual counterpart. Many people are becoming "permanent shades," which means crossing over for good — or ill.
"The Nether" is a serious piece of writing dealing with a very real and complicated issue that we ignore at our peril. The play sets itself the problem of asking us to engage with people whom many would find abhorrent. The imperative of the theater means that there Betorder is some pressure to make the characters played by Van Swearingen (and also Doug Vickers and Steve Schine) sympathetic enough that their arguments hold up, but that requires some serious risk-taking which this production does not fully embrace. Understandably so.
What is missing from this production is a real sense of the virtual world — the setting, by John Musial, is idyllic, but there isn’t a real manifestation of the synthetic, the high-definition glow of perverse perfection — that was on view at Woolly Mammoth. The director of the Chicago premiere, Karen Kessler, has gone for a much simpler staging — which makes the acting more personal, I suppose, but the piece suffers from that lack of a sharp contrast between its worlds. Most plays are best in a highly intimate theater; I’m not sure that applies to this one.
With those givens, you don’t get the full sense of the pleasure (and danger) of virtual anonymity, and the threat it presents to a world with consequences, which actually makes that threat less palpable even as it makes this play even more difficult to watch. "The Nether" is an admirably daring and astute piece of writing in every way and the Red Orchid actors play it with courage and integrity. But especially on this viewing, I didn’t find the ethical exploration entirely worth the real-time cost of its experience.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @ChrisJonesTrib
REVIEW: "THE NETHER" (2.5 STARS)
When: Through March 12
Where: A Red Orchid Theatre, 1531 N. Wells St.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Tickets: $30-$35 at 312-943-8722 or www.aredorchidtheatre.com
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