Theatre in Review: In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot (Playwrights Horizons)

	Sandra Caldwell. Photo: Valerie Terranova

The playwright Sarah Mantell wants us to contemplate life after climate disaster -- something we should all be thinking about -- but, in the case of In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot, their imagination is insufficient to the occasion. The action unfolds in an Amazon fulfillment center in Wyoming heavily staffed by middle-aged woman who, having abandoned their homes, roam the countryside in groups, going from job to job and sleeping in their vans. They're an entire tribe of Frances McDormands living out a real-life version of Nomadland.

Well, they're roaming what is left of the countryside. Following an unnamed catastrophic climate event, sea levels have risen precipitously, eradicating the East and West Coasts. Access -- Internet? physical? -- has been cut off by "the Corporation" -- Is Jeff Bezos running the country? -- so none of Mantell's seven protagonists know what has happened elsewhere, or how many of the 50 states still exist. Trying to figure it out, the women have a workday ritual of announcing the address on each package they handle. "When's the last time you saw Nevada?" one of them asks. "Or Arizona?" another wonders.

The workers also scan package labels looking for evidence of loved ones from whom they have become separated. If this doesn't seem likely, Mantell certainly isn't afraid to traffic in coincidences: When Ani, a new worker, joins the team, Ash, the group's de facto ringleader, finds herself face-to-face with the sister-in-law she didn't know she had. (Her brother, alas, was killed, Ani says, "on the day it hit," whatever it was.) Even in a country with a severely reduced population, what are the chances of these two hooking up? As a kicker, Ash and Ani start dating.

Each detail of the unbrave new world conjured by Mantell chills one to the bone; collectively, they don't make much sense. Playwrights wanting to conjure dystopian futures based on current trends should choose their ideas carefully, giving us enough information to fill in the blanks for ourselves. The information supplied here is often confusing, even more so on the political side, which leaves open the question of what has happened to the US Government. It's not as if Mantell has neglected such things to lavish her attention on others: The action is minimal, including a sabotage subplot that goes nowhere; for all their scrappy survival skills, the characters are a thin lot, largely passive victims of overwhelming circumstances.

This is not for lack of trying: At the performance I attended, understudy Adinah Alexander stepped into the role of Jen with little or no rehearsal, carrying the day like the pro she is. Deirdre Lovejoy has an effectively insinuating quality as Ani, who comes fully equipped with secrets and plans to "uninvent" the status quo. Among the others, Sandra Caldwell has a nice way of curling up in her chair and, practically purring with self-satisfaction, recalling being rude to her customers during her waitress days, while Pooya Mohseni, a new face, is an interesting presence; even when doing nothing, one's eye is drawn in her direction.

Overall, there's little that the director, Sivan Battat, can do to juice these proceedings, which wander between grunt work on the product line and gab sessions in the parking, with timeouts for each character's moment of direct address. The script features several flashbacks, which aren't immediately apparent as such, adding to the prevailing feeling of bewilderment.

Interestingly, the production design has a precision missing elsewhere. The set by Emmie Finckel, whose work becomes more interesting each time out, features a working interior with products moving on conveyor belts and an upstage garage-style door that rises to reveal a stunning mountain vista. The latter touch contributes enormously to the sense of isolation shaping the characters' lives. Cha See's lighting contrasts cold institutional looks for the work scenes with warmer, natural sunlight washes in the parking lot. Mel Ng's costumes strongly support a sense of hardscrabble lives. Sinan Refik Zafar's highly evocative sound design includes airplanes, truck motors, buzzers, and an ambient workday rumble in the facility; the latter is so pronounced that the characters use mics to communicate. (They sound normal in other scenes.)

In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot climaxes with an absurd twist involving human cargo before leaving its characters up in the air; a monologue delivered on the sound system adds to the distancing effect. The play's main accomplishment is to illustrate the difficulty of dramatizing this intensely important issue. (Certain reviews have described the piece as hopeful; that's a rather odd comment, since everyone ends up abandoned, wondering if the Pacific Ocean is lurking on the other side of the mountain glimpsed in the distance.) It is the third climate-change play to come our way in as many weeks: The most successful, Deep History at the Public, uses a lecture format (with dramatic interludes) and deals with actual events. This may be one topic that benefits from sticking to the facts; God knows, they're awful enough. --David Barbour