Urmetazoan by Alex Rugman
North American Premiere at Barrington Stage Company
By: Charles Giuliano - Oct 05, 2026
Urmetazoan
By Alex Rugman
Directed by Jack Serio
Starring Francesca Carpanini, Julia Chan, Beatrix Flynn-Powell, Justin Mark, & Lyla Randall
Scenic Designer Marsha Ginsberg | Costume Designer Ricky Reynoso | Lighting Designer Stacey Derosier | Sound Designer + Original Music Lee Kinney | Dialect Coach Deborah Hecht | Production Stage Manager Jakob W. Plummer | Assistant Stage Manager Rebecca L. Johnston | Casting McCorkle Casting Ltd.
Barrington Stage Company
Mark St. Germain Stage
Pittsfield, Mass.
September 30 to October 25, 2026
The Urmetazoan is the hypothetical last common ancestor of all animals. The name derives from metazoa, an old biological term for animals. It is universally accepted to have been a multicellular heterotroph — with the novelties of a germline and oogamy, an extracellular matrix and basement membrane, cell-cell and cell-ECM adhesions and signaling pathways, collagen IV and fibrillar collagen, different cell types, spatial regulation and a complex developmental plan, and relegated unicellular stages. Wikepedia
An obtuse title is but one of many complications in an ambitious but overreaching North American premiere of Urmetazoan by Alex Rugman. With a sci fi approach it is both micro and macro from the cosmic to quotedian. There is a simultaneous production in London which has opened to mostly positive reviews.
The response to the production that I saw at Barrington Stage Company is mixed and that, trust me, is generous.
The play begins in subdued lighting as two young girls enter a generic apartment and run in a circle before settling on the floor. They engage in a word game with quick exchanges of call and answer. It was impossible to hear them clearly so there is little to make sense of. The sisters appear at the end of the play with their grown up selves repeating the ritualistic chant but with limited clarification of its intent.
After a separation of seven years Alice (Julia Chan), the older and serious one, and Abigail (Francesca Carpanini) are together with no clear understanding of the lapse between. Other than that they are obviously, literally, worlds apart.
Alice, an attractive, 40ish bleached blonde with dark roots, is packing to leave a cold, generic South Florida apartment near Cape Canaveral. She is going on a trip in a couple of weeks.
One way to, yikes, Mars. She and colleagues have been training for ten years to create a colony. The reasons why, and human misgivings, comprise the core of this cosmic drama. Reasonable vacillation is what gives edge and purpose to this drama.
The sisters could not be more different. Initially they bicker and it is not clear that they have any commonality. Alice is fixed, stoic and admirable in her ambition and commitment to extreme scientific research. Abigail, a woman with no seeming purpose in a life adrift, can only express her own sense of loss. For her it is visiting a death bed.
Alice, however, will be doing the good work of exploring feasibility of survival in space when, for all the obvious reasons, earth becomes uninhabitable. Of all of God’s creatures only humans foul their nest. It’s just a matter of time.
That’s a sobering thought and the play functions best when complex science is explained in layman’s terms. Using the head of a pin Alice explains that this is our galaxy. Out there are billions upon billions of others. She extrapolates the plausible numbers of life sustainable planets like ours.
Given the vastness of the space/ time continuum why have we yet to make contact with other forms of life and hypothetical advanced technological cultures? We have been beaming messages into space for decades and have yet to receive feedback.
From the cosmic the drama lands back on earth to that mundane living room where Alice is sorting possessions into boxes. It’s unclear where they are headed; to Goodwill or storage? The latter is pointless if there is to be no return. Metaphorically Abigail is to be neatly packed up as well as Will (Justin Mark) an ex who falls by to say goodbye and retrieve a salt shaker in the form of a space ship.
His role is thin and underwritten adding little to the squabble between the sisters. There is an absurdly unnecessary twist when Abigail shags him. Alice immediately knows, get this, because of heat sensors in the apartment that show up on her computer.
There is the very feminine question of what to wear in a space colony? In a scene of ersatz bonding they sort through Alice’s clothes. What to save vs what gets boxed. Shades make the cut to protect from the apparent glare on Mars.
Rather casually Alice discloses that, by the way, I won a Nobel Prize for Medicine. But little of her persona really conveys that brilliance other then the dumbed-down science chatter with Abigail.
Will, a fellow scientist on the project, checks some of the boxes. Alice has asserted that there was a deadline for commitment which has now lapsed. He debunks that stating that even if she backs out at the last minute there were ten scientists trained and eager to take her place.
When Alice calls to cancel her phone account there is comic relief. A robotic voice wants to know why? It’s easy and fun to relate to trying to reason with Ma Bell.
There was an interlude that made so sense. Alice appears in her living room in a space suit. A voice interacts with her and instructs her to put on a helmet. Then the girl in the space suit is embraced by the real Alice. This is utterly confusing.
There is a surprise ending but we won’t spoil it. By then, however, this drama was lost in space.