NPX Weekly Round-Up: oranges by Rachel Lynett

What if, despite all the horrors, we survive? Plus three more plays I want to read this week!

Jun 16, 2025

Hello everyone! Today’s piece has a few content warnings: discussions of the end of the world/apocalypse; pet death; cheating; and climate change. If that’s too much for you right now, I completely understand. I’ll just see you next week for another play!

Let’s be honest here— things could be better. In general, worldwide, but also personally. These large, global issues have always effected even the smallest of us, but it doesn’t really hit you until you leave college and have been an adult for a bit just how much they effect everyone. It’s been quite a while for me since that realization, but some days it feels like it hits all over again.

Like most of you who read this publication probably do, I dream of a day when I don’t have to worry about paying my bills, where I can do theatre stuff the majority of the time, even if I have to have a non-theatrical side gig or two. But with the…everything…happening, jobs in general seem to be becoming scarce, let alone jobs that I (and other artists, probably) am qualified for. It’s scary. It’s, honestly, downright horrifying.

But still, somehow, I (and many of you out there) have hope that one day it can get better. And that’s the main driving factor of today’s play, oranges by Rachel Lynett.

Here is the official summary from NPX:

It's the end of the world. Jacks and Mickey need to decide if they'd rather stay on Earth and try to make something out of disaster or if they'll go to Mars with everyone else.

This is the type of “black box sci-fi” that any company anywhere could put on. All around the roof Jacks and Mickey sit on, lights and sounds erupt from the city— but otherwise, all we know of this world comes from the couple. We know that they are both teachers at the school whose roof they are now sitting on. We know they are a couple. And we know that, somehow some-way, the world is sort-of ending.

This version of the apocalypse is your classic “climate change has made the world uninhabitable so now the billionaires are taking ships to Mars and offering tickets for people to come with— that is, if they don’t mind being ruled by said billionaires” situation. Jacks and Mickey have a big choice in front of them: Do they go to Mars where they know they will live, and their way of life will be preserved? Or do they stay on Earth where whether the human race will live or die is a toss-up?

In this moment of doubt, not knowing how much longer they truly have left, the couple reveal secrets to each other. Some are a little silly, but most are not. In fact, the two biggest ones are arguably relationship-ending. But despite everything happening around them, or perhaps because of it, the two are able to forgive each other, truly. It’s the epitome of the saying “water under the bridge”. It doesn’t matter now, not when everything as they know it is ending. All that really matters is that they love each other, and they need to decide what they’re going to do.

You would think the decision would be easy— go to Mars and definitely live, or stay on Earth and most likely die, or at the very least suffer greatly? I mean, come on. But Jacks and Mickey don’t see it that way. As Jacks says near the end of the play:

What if the planet is just evolving? What if we’re witnessing a once in a millennia combustion and everyone’s fleeing a hair too soon? What if those of us who stayed could figure out a new way to live? To be better to one another? To start over without the billionaires and the corporate greed. What if we finally learned how to fix things? What if we’re all about to leave just when it’s gorgeous?

And that is the true crux of everything— the “what if”. What if after all the billionaires whose fault this is leave, we can fix things? What if this isn’t the end after all? What if, despite the horrors, we survive?

That’s why this play hit me so hard when I read it. The dramatic question is not only one that is moving, but one that is well incorporated into the script in an organic way. In the end, it doesn’t matter who Jacks and Mickey are, what they want, or what they stand for individually. What matters is the tenacity of hope and the human spirit.

A good dramatic question/message/theme can be like a lighthouse for even the shortest or simplest plays. When all else fails, shine its light upon your characters, and everything should become clear. If it doesn’t, perhaps we should reconsider said question. You can have the most intelligently and poignantly written characters and plot, but if you have nothing to say, nothing to investigate, what are you even doing?

I’m not saying every story or play should have a “moral”— far from it. But every good play is investigating something. It is asking questions. It is exploring the whys and the hows from as many angles as possible! The questions don’t have to be life altering or philosophical or emotional, but they do have to be real. This play shows that, when you know the heart of what you’re delving into with your work, that genuine curiosity shines through and makes your audience think.

Here is my official recommendation from NPX:

This short piece is shot through with the very human instinct to have hope and perseverance even in the most trying of times. The fact that Mickey and Jacks still have a solid relationship despite revelations and the world potentially ending is not only sweet but a testament to the things love can do for us. A wonderful sci-fi short perfect for the current moment.

What did you think of this play? Let me know in the comments below!

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