Last Ship to Proxima Centauri (revisited)

Kennedy Kanagawa, Marcy McGuigan, Tom Ford
(Portland Stage, 2022)
Photo by Mical Hutson

For five years, I read a full-length play each day in April, selected from those available at New Play Exchange. This year I have too many other obligations to make that commitment. I am drafting two new pieces for school and will be re-drafting an existing script for End of Play, a writing initiative created by the Dramatists Guild.

Reading one hundred and fifty new full-length plays, though … and during the Trump years? It was inspiring, and in no small part stimulated me in my own craft. Rarely, however, have I had the chance to see any of these works on stage, in development or in production.

So, I was thrilled when playwright Greg Lam posted photos of the set for his play Last Ship to Proxima Centauri being constructed at Portland Stage, and when it was announced that the piece would be available for streaming near the end of its initial run!

In brief, Proxima Centauri is about that time in the not-too-distant future when Earth has become uninhabitable and hundreds of ships set out on a two thousand year voyage to reach a potential new home planet. That this last ship is the only one to arrive that launched from the United States, arriving over a century after everyone else, complicates their arrival.

The concept works very well as a play (as opposed to a film or any other media) as it has one set – the deck of an interplanetary vessel – and only five characters.

Spoilers Ahead

Octavia Chavez-Richmond, Jamal James
(Portland Stage, 2022)
Photo by Mical Hutson

The inhabitants of this new world, descendants of those who arrived from nations historically oppressed by the American empire, are not happy about being inundated by 100,000 largely white newcomers. Having survived and created a thriving system of shared sacrifice, what would it mean to admit a vast number of new residents who would no doubt insist on things to be the way they were back on Earth?

The philosophy behind this saga is a nightmare for many white Americans, what they might deride online as “the future that liberals want.” And it points up the errors in the logic of American exceptionalism. Freedom to do or say whatever you choose is a decadence that can only be afforded the powerful, and being white in America is power.

Our so-called freedoms, of speech, of religion, of guns, these freedoms exist so long as there is a power structure to defend it. Without that, no one would survive. Civilization defines humanity, and without that white Americans are just animals; screaming, crying, angry animals.

The performance is available online through Sunday, April 3. For those in the Cleveland area, you might be excited to learn the acting company includes Tom Ford, who has been a much-beloved player on the stage at Great Lakes Theater, where he played Sweeney Todd, Henry Higgins, Monsieur Thénardier, and so many others memorable roles.

"Last Ship to Proxima Centauri" by Greg Lam continues online from Portland Stage through April 3, 2022