This World of Tomorrow Is Balm for What Ails You

By Marilyn Lester***The new Tom Hanks-fueled play, This World of Tomorrow, with Kelli O’Hara, pretty much inhabits the world we need for today. It’s full of humor, sweetness, positivity and a subtle gravitas that builds to a tried-and-true happy Hollywood ending. While it may not be a truly groundbreaking piece, it’s a sturdy, nicely-conceived journey with a swell payoff. Sans pretense, but full of subtle nuance, This World of Tomorrow burrows into the psyche and finds a home there in the realm of universal truth and hope. Good medicine in our present-day reality of existential dread.

Co-written by Hanks and James Glossman, This World of Tomorrow is based on a recent collection of short stories by Hanks; the setting is mainly the 1939 New York World’s Fair, an international and extravagant exposition with the theme of “the world of tomorrow” and an opening slogan of “Dawn of a New Day.” Yet in that day there too was global uncertainty: the Great Depression and the specter of World War II. Unlike today, though, good and bad were clearly defined, the former in the civil authority of the Four Freedoms (religion, speech, assembly, the press), and conversely, for evil, one need only look to the horrors of the Nazi regime. The 1939 fair offered its own balm of escape and hope.

The stellar cast inhabiting This World of Tomorrow, a collective of talent creating characters you really care about and root for, is led by the reliably outstanding Hanks (Bert Allenberry) and the unfailingly perceptive O’Hara (Carmen Perry) under the  smart and sophisticated direction of Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon. The supporting cast, Kayli Carter (Viginia Perry), Ruben Santiago-Hudson (M-Dash), and players who portray several characters  each—Kerry Bishé, Kayli Carter, Paul Murphy, Jamie Ann Romero, Lee Aaron Rosen, Jay O. Sanders, Donald Webber Jr., Michelle Wilson— deliver stunning performances in this fast-paced epic of time travel.

Yes, time travel: Hank’s Allenberry is from 2089, a mere few generations down the time road, where the prospects seem pretty dreary; comic relief is in a sophisticated artificial intelligence residing in the amusing android, “ELMA.”  Time travel as a subject of storytelling is no new thing. Louis-Sébastien Mercier’s L‘An 2440, rêve s’il en fût jamais (1770) portrays a time traveler taking the author to a utopian Paris in the far future. There’s H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895), Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder (1952), Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity (1955) and plenty more that delve into the consequences of temporal journeying. But This World of Tomorrow is purposefully and wisely vague about the paradoxes, best sumed up by Peter Lorre’s superb monologue in Beat the Devil (1953): “Time. Time. What is time?” The Swiss manufacture it. The French hoard it. The Italians squander it. Americans say it is money. Hindus say it does not exist. Do you know what I say? I say time is a crook.”

For Allenberry, time is most certainly a crook. His first visit to the 1939 fair is a gift from his matter-of-fact contractual girlfriend (Bishé). They both work for a  scientific entity studying the past to inform the present. This 2089 present is sketched out with economy—just enough to know why the past of 1939 is so enticing, and from that first visit, Allenberry is hooked. A chance meeting with Carmen Perry sets up a chain of emotion and desire. Allenberry can’t forget her, and returns alone several times, devising to run into Perry again and again. For her part, Carmen, a bookkeeper, owing to a marriage gone wrong, winds up living with her butcher brother, Max (Sanders) and her niece, Virginia (Carter).

The problem for Allenberry is, those stays in the past are short by necessity; tarry too long and he risks death. Time travel is still in its infancy 60 years hence, so there are only certain windows of availability that allow him to return to the same location, date and time: June 8, 1939, through a portal located in Room 1114 in the Hotel Lincoln—tricky odds to deal with. Allenberry is determined, though, and the Everyman in him demonstrates that human nature prevails in its steadfast quest of fulfilment, security, desire, love, belonging and acceptance, all encoded in human DNA. Allenberry’s grit wins the day, and because of his resolve, the world is a better-off place for it: love wins.

The creative team includes Todd Kreidler, associate director. Derek McLane’s scenic and projection designs are vibrant and breathtaking. Top notch are Adam Honoré’s lighting and Justin Ellington’s sound. Period and future costumes by Dede Ayite fit the bill, but distracting wigs by J. Jared Janas fall way short of the mark.

This World of Tomorrow plays through December 21 at the Shed, Hudson Yards: theshed.org. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes.

Photos by Marc J. Franklin