REVIEW: Someone Else's Nowhere, with SixEleven Theatre Company.

"No one ever really talks about how your twenties suck," a character earnestly soliloquizes partway through Madeleine Bohn's Someone Else's Nowhere, a world premiere play with SixEleven Theatre Company. I was extremely taken with this line, spoken sincerely and with great conviction by Madeline Gibb, not because of any seeming weight that it carries, but because I couldn't quite grasp how someone could utter such a sentiment with a straight face (and no, there's nothing in the text that suggests this line should be taken as naive or self-parodic in any way). No one talks about how your twenties suck?!?! There are practically whole cottage industries built to artistically excavate what it means to be a frustrated twenty-something, yet here, in the midst of one of Bohn's frequent fourth wall-breaking monologues - deployed throughout the show to give her characters more depth than her dialogue scenes often allow - is a sentiment so absurd that it took me out of her world entirely.

You may see this as perhaps a minor nit to pick for what is otherwise a much larger and free-wheeling production - mostly directed with a steady hand by Keeley Stanley - but it does feels characteristic of my main issues with Someone Else's Nowhere, a show built almost as a dare to execute the most intriguing ideas in the most frustrating and wrong-headed ways possible. Bohn and Stanley's world is tantalizing and monotonous, thought-provoking and baffling, passionately performed and awkwardly situated. If there is anything positive to say here, it's that something this dramatically stalled and confoundedly constructed could only come together through the work of very talented artists, albeit one's whose instincts have gone astray.

Speaking of things going astray; the plot specificities of Someone Else's Nowhere are deployed in such narratively questionable fashion that I'm unsure of how much to share here without giving away what may be constituted as a "spoiler." The play bills itself as a "sci-fi thriller" (accurate!), so I feel somewhat comfortable in relaying that the main action follows a group of production assistants on a reality TV-show crew who get stranded in a forest that we discover to be located on an alien planet (this reveal is tossed off in a way that attempts to be nonchalant, but instead raises eyebrows and stalls our experience at a moment when the momentum should really be picking up). The team is there to film a fly-on-the-wall series documenting the "unidentified species" that populates this new world, but as to be expected, things go south rather quickly.

As bizarre and frustrating as the plot can be, it's at least a fairly comfortable and easy-going experience overall; the show clocks in at a breezy 75 minutes, and JR Bornemann's set (a series of trees littered across the stage under a grassy sky) is visually minimal in a way that's intriguing enough to keep us guessing where things will be headed (the necessities of a final set reveal do sadly require a fantastically awkward scene transition in a not-really-a-blackout blackout moment, but that's storefront theater for you). Overall, the ensemble - ably navigating dialogue that stalls and circles itself in between monologues that come off as prime fodder for a future college monologue workshop - have wonderful stage presence and are nobly committed to the circumstances in which they've found themselves. Of all of the monologuists, I was most impressed with Lucas Cosens, taking his smart-ass of a character and skillfully guiding us through a piece that turned our perception of them on its head.

Lest you think my previous comment regarding college theatre was a dig, make no mistake that SixEleven Theatre Company themselves loudly and proudly flaunt their collegiate origins; the name of the company comes from the address of the college home in Michigan where the company's founders bonded and became theatrical compatriots, and the entire cast (and much of the production team) are current and/or former alum of Central Michigan University (Stanley is also the Department Chair of their Theatre Program). Such tight-knit bonds can make for wonderful chemistry and ease in the collaborative process, but can also lead to a siloed approach to theater-making. Perhaps this is what leads to moments where the performance style veers into actors screaming and throwing objects with no sense of control or rhythm, or where plot details become obtuse and illogical, or where particular staging moments and design elements come off as sluggish.

(Aside: I'd rather not discuss the poor fate of Allie Jackson's character, who spends her time here being admonished for eating cookies, gives a monologue about the need for women to tactically remain "small," and then spends the rest of the show being portrayed by two separate doll props).

Though their van has been demolished at the top of the show, Bohn still keeps the narrative wheels spinning long enough that the final "twist" becomes sadly quite obvious sooner than one would hope. Without giving too much away; the show ends with no curtain call, with the remaining actors on stage morosely feasting upon a lavish meal set before them, as we slowly shuffle our way out of the theater. It's such an apt metaphor that you almost wish it were intentional; SixEleven Theatre Company clearly have the means to keep themselves fed, but we don't even get a crumb.

Someone Else's Nowhere runs an estimated 75 minutes with no intermission, and performs at The Den Theatre (1331 N. Milwaukee) through August 2nd 2026. Tickets are available HERE.