Jon

I saw George Saunders's Jon Friday night at The Building Stage. As the Collaboraction sums it: Jon is a futuristic allegory about teenage love and self-discovery in a corporate universe where television commercials replace life experiences.

Smart, funny, and disturbing as Saunders's work can be, Jon was also—I promise it wasn't just the oddly warm December evening or the good company—life affirming.

An exerpt:
Maybe we can come to be normal, and sit on our porch at night, the porch of our own house, like at LI 87326, where the mom knits and the dad plays guitar and the little kid works very industrious with his Speak & Spell, and when we talk, it will make total sense, and when we look at the stars and moon, if choosing to do that, we will not think of LI 44387, where the moon frowns down at this dude due to he is hiding in his barn eating Rebel CornBells instead of proclaiming his SnackLove aloud, we will not think of LI 09383, where this stork flies through some crying stars who are crying due to the baby who is getting born is the future Mountain Dew Guy, we will not think of that alien at LI 33081 descending from the sky going, Just what is this thing called a Cinnabon?

*
You can read the text of the New Yorker story from which the play was so carefully and tech-savvily adapted here. The show's run has also been extended for one more week, so you can still catch it the 18th, 19th, or 20th. Students are only $5; $25 for regulars or people without access to other ways of getting in on the cheap.