Nature takes over, and it isn’t Noah’s ark

Flesh and Blood and Fish and Fowl. Funny and startling and thought-provoking and just plain weird, this terrific show by Geoff Sobelle and Charlotte Ford might be subtitled The Revenge of the Food.

In the deteriorating vastness of an abandoned Rite Aid store, the perfectly intact wall sign Convenience Foods looms over two desks, some filing cabinets, and a postal bin. A man and a woman, desperate to keep up the empty illusion of work by wearing business dress, writing memos, sticking up Post-Its and photocopying, do a pathetic approach/avoidance dance. So far, so familiar to anyone who has ever worked in an office.

But the so-called civilized world is losing its grip. Nature is encroaching. First there's a fly. Pretty soon a plant springs out of the water fountain. A raccoon appears, then a pheasant, then a weasel, then a deer, then more - many, many more - creatures arrive, leading up to a spectacular finale that I won't spoil for you. As Sobelle said in the talk-back afterward, the human world has been "hijacked by the natural world."

Truly creepy and beautiful taxidermy is juxtaposed with a corporate film showing how meat is processed for our "convenience foods." This is a doomsday play that had people in the audience both helpless with laughter and totally unnerved. Ford and Sobelle are supported by an extraordinarily imaginative and clever team of designers.

   - Toby Zinman