Photo courtesy of Latine Theater Lab

Brian Shaer plays multiple characters, including Pablo, in the playlet The Wrong Stuff in the world premiere production of Last of the Red Hot Robots.

By AARON KRAUSE

A social media influencer learns from a DNA test that she is among the 40 percent of individuals who can smell asparagus in their urine.
An otherworldly being tells two zoo-goers that ants, not humans, are among Earth’s dominant species.
A woman aboard a spacecraft sometime in the future is murdered because she sang “Greensleeves” once too often, driving an astronaut to kill.

These are among the absurd, eyebrow-raising realities in Brian Harris’s odd yet captivating, campy new science-fiction comedy Last of the Red Hot Robots. Latiné Theater Lab (LTL) Artistic Director Alex Gonzalez has said the company’s world-premiere production is unlike anything else on stage. He may be right. Fortunately, theatergoers have until Sept. 27 to catch LTL’s wacky and endearing staging inside Empire Stage’s intimate black box in Fort Lauderdale.

Gonzalez directs with appropriately over-the-top comic energy, guiding a small but versatile cast of South Florida performers — Wendy Chamorro, Samuel Krogh, Ryan Townsend, Susanna Ninomiya, Quinn Colón, and Brian Shaer. Each actor portrays multiple characters with exaggeration yet truth during the brisk, 80-minute, intermission-less production. Because the performers sincerely inhabit their characters even as they’re comedically over the top, it’s easy to laugh nonstop and even care about these people.

The performers’ versatility is especially important because the show isn’t just one story. Indeed, Last of the Red Hot Robots is also the title of one of four playlets that make up the evening. While most stand on their own, at least one links directly to another. The settings range from a zoo to a futuristic spaceship, or as the program puts it, “in and around Miami and space.”

Set and costume designer Andrew Rodriguez-Triana has created a sleek, high-tech playing space that immediately suggests science fiction. Sliding doors, a toy-like robot, video screens, and machinery-like devices signal the futuristic world, while tinsel-strip curtains add a festive, slightly campy vibe. Together, the design combines sophistication with playfulness, preparing audiences for a colorful, upbeat ride.

Meanwhile, lighting designer Sergio Fustes Jr. has created nonrealistic effects that feel appropriate for this production. Flashing red lights suggest passion and otherworldliness, while green lighting conjures an eerie world. The lighting effects, combined with sound engineer Joe Paz’s strange sound effects, heighten the play’s sense of absurdity and keep us firmly planted in its bizarre, otherworldly world.

Finally, colorful and offbeat costumes by Rodriguez-Triana and Cindy Pearce enhance the play’s oddness, reinforcing its campy, fantastical, and delightfully unpredictable tone. In particular, drawings of robots appearing on a real-life robot’s “breasts” are both funny and memorable.

While Last of the Red Hot Robots is not a musical, it features mood-enhancing music. One upbeat song, with an infectious Latin beat, adds a cultural vibe that aligns with LTL’s mission. The company is dedicated to amplifying Latiné voices and expanding opportunities for underrepresented artists in the region. Latiné (pronounced lah-tee-neh) is a gender-inclusive term derived from Latino and Latina, embracing the full spectrum of Latin identities.

While the play does not feature Hispanic characters, it aligns with LTL’s mission of producing nonrealistic theater “that you don’t see very often,” in Gonzalez’s words. He has described this staging of Harris’s play as an “immersive, multi-sensory production.” Technically, that’s true — at times, the actors scurry into the audience seating area, making us feel part of the action. Any production in Empire Stage’s tiny space naturally makes us feel like flies on the wall. During the playlet The Wrong Stuff, we feel like passengers aboard a spacecraft that may be doomed after the murder of the “Greensleeves”-singing astronaut.

While this production boasts several smart choices, others are questionable. For instance, why does one of the actors speak in an accent that suggests his character is from Russia? Also, since the production takes place in and around Miami, adding more sights and sounds that place us in the Magic City might have been appropriate.

But overall, it’s hard to find too much fault with LTL’s world-premiere mounting. Certainly, the comically over-the-top yet sincere performances consistently entertain.

In the opening playlet, The Uplifting, the actors portraying zoogoers imbue their roles with a goofiness that may call to mind films such as the 1994 comedy Dumb and Dumber, starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. The performers who play the zoogoers are Townsend and Krogh. Meanwhile, Chamorro lends the otherworldly being, Miranda, a confident and mysterious aura. Clearly, this fast-talking, magical, and sometimes seductive being is not your average person on the street. Thanks to commendable special effects, she seems to appear out of nowhere. At one point, she sports pom poms — an addition that enhances the piece’s energy and comedy.

Lines such as “It’s all about the ants” and “Ants are perfection” elicit laughs, while one line in particular moved the audience to applause during the reviewed performance: “It’s OK to be gay; it’s the 21st century.” Audiences will also likely delight in the burlesque-style movement, deftly choreographed by Nicole Perry. She also skillfully choreographs intimate moments so that they look real while keeping the actors safe.

The piece’s humor elicits at least chuckles. During the episode titled Your DNA & You, a social media influencer learns that she is 52 percent Neanderthal, leading her to perform a “cavegirl dance” (she precedes the words with a hashtag). “In case any of you guys have been living in a…in a cave or something, it’s official, I’m a Neanderthal,” the influencer proclaims. Ninomiya plays her with a bubbly, enthusiastic demeanor that makes this social media influencer-cavewoman (talk about anachronistic!) lovable.

Some of the play’s other humor is meta-theatrical. For instance, one of the video screens flashes the word “laugh” following a comedic moment. True, the humor in Last of the Red Hot Robots is not sophisticated wit, à la Noël Coward. Its short running time also leaves little room for emotional depth or character development. But overall, Harris’s play is an escapist piece good for 80 or so uninterrupted minutes of laughs and joy. Honestly, it’s the kind of lighthearted material we need today, when grim news seems omnipresent. Also, since science fiction is not a genre you see often onstage, Last of the Red Hot Robots is a welcome addition to the live theatrical canon. It offers audiences a wild, whimsical, and joyfully absurd night of theater they won’t soon forget.

Last of the Red Hot Robots is just LTL’s second production. The company triumphed bringing María Irene Fornés’s gritty realism to life in its debut production of Mud. Now, LTL demonstrates it can handle campy absurdism just as deftly as stark realism. Certainly, it’s a promising sign for a young company eager to stretch theatrical boundaries.

IF YOU GO
WHAT: Latiné Theater Lab’s world-premiere production of Brian Harris’s Last of the Red Hot Robots.
WHEN: Through Sept. 27. Performances are Thursday–Sunday at select times.
WHERE: Empire Stage, 1140 N. Flagler Drive in Ft. Lauderdale.
TICKETS: $15–35. Visit LTLRobots.eventbrite.com.