In the world’s last surviving TV show, “The End is Nigh,” the audience laughs its way through a burlesque about humanity’s survival. Game show host Consuela Hobbs (Hampton Richards) orchestrates a competition among three clowns (Ben Heath, Karina Ithier, Glen Moore). Who will be the last one standing in the face of ecological disaster, disease, famine, and war? Hobbs assumes that the contestants will destroy each other in their quest to survive. But (spoiler alert), the contestants violate her expectations.
Instead of turning against one another, the clowns — who express themselves only with grunts, groans, giggles, and gurgles — manage to cooperate. Thus, they survive a devastating flood by aiding one another in staying afloat. Instead of using swords as weapons, they use them to perform circus tricks like sword-swallowing and balancing acts. And instead of blowing one another up with grenades, they juggle the explosives.
The production is the work of Liars and Believers (LaB), the resident theater company of The Foundry in Kendall Square. The play is performed in the 115-seat black box theater of the center, a former 19th-century industrial building that opened in 2022 as a shared space for arts and culture.
Collaboration is an ongoing theme in this production. Starting in the fall of 2024, LaB artistic director Jason Slavick came up with an idea and then hired a cast and creative team who shared his vision for the performance. Over the next 14 months, the group wrote the script and created the other elements of “The End is Nigh.”
Witty and often snarky musical accompaniment from Enrique Babilonia and Jesse Garlick adds to the fun of “The End is Nigh,” as does a “commercial break” for an imaginary store called Dick Van Clausan’s Discount House. Van Clausan, waving a very phallic neon green mic, gets the audience to yell “more Dick” again and again.
Kristen Connolly’s costumes repurpose strips of black plastic and junk food wrappers to mock environmental degradation. Matan Rubenstein’s sound design, along with art director Rebecca Lehrhoff’s scenic design, transforms scaffolding and sheets of fabric and plastic into a raging flood and later, a chaotic war zone.
This TV game show doesn’t only entertain the audience. It pulls them into participating. Like a studio TV audience, they boo, they applaud, and they chant enthusiastically. Eventually, like the anarchic clowns, the audience revolts. Instead of applauding Consuela, the spectators pummel her with boos of rebellion. The energy on and off the stage illustrates the power the show promotes — collective action, not competitive individualism, is the key to survival for all of us, with or without our clown noses.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.