Luis Reyes
The Limitations of Genetic Technology takes place in a near future in which genetic science has taken a mainstream foothold in our lives. Teenagers grow vestigial tails and leopard spots instead of getting tattoos or piercings; lesbians combine their DNA to have children without needing male seeds; religious institutions consider financing pre-natal procedures that encourage faith; the deaf fight against an eradication of their way of life.
In the center of this new world, four people-grappling with the inevitability of middle age but loath to use genetic science to fight it-embrace a brand new technology that promises to actually create what they never had. But at this intersection of age and technology, they discover the emotional limits of the artificial.
This play started for me as a farce aimed at the Bush administration’s attacks on stem cell research. As I wrote more, though, I felt as if the dramatic truth behind the scenes that were taking shape had more to do with how the science of genetics would actually affect the way we live and feel (as opposed to the laws being created that could possibly hold it back). The result now is a fictional world that, I hope, is a somewhat accurate premonition of how people, who are perhaps my age now, might embrace or reject the possibilities of science some 25 or 30 years in the future.
Of course moving from the terrain of farce to a world informed by real science, I was faced with my own lack of knowledge on the subject of genetics and its moral and emotional ramifications. So my producers and I reached out to experts in the field.
Nancy Dobbs Owen and Bruno Oliver. Photo by Steven Calcote
We organized a fundraising salon on Oct. 16 at the Pasadena Playhouse’s Carrie Hamilton to which we invited: Tanvir Hussain, M.D.; neuro-science PhD. candidate Laurel Martin-Harris; Dr. Shlomo Sher, professor of philosophy at USC; and Dr. Vlad Kustanovich, a genetic scientist doing work for the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange.
At this salon, moderator Steven Calcote (also the show’s technical director) led a discussion-which included me and the show’s director David Watkins (himself a technology analyst for the Rand Corporation)-that traversed the current genetic landscape, illuminating everything from the rise of Consumer Genetics to the ethical issues that confront parents who genetically author their children. It was a fascinating meeting of the minds that opened up for me the dramatic potential of this subject. (We will reprise this salon after one of our Sunday shows. Check our website for details. And an audio recording of the salon can also be found on our website www.geneticlimitations.com under the Past Event: Science Will Make You Perfect! Then what? link on the right side of the page. )
What stood out to me during the salon (and I encourage you to listen yourself) is that the impulse to imagine the benefits of genetic science is rooted firmly in the human capacity to experience loss. As Dr. Hussain noted, medicine right now is not about repairing the human body more than it is about stymieing rapid deterioration, stopping the deleterious effects of the disease rather than actually rebuilding it. Genetic science might offer an answer to actually restoring that which is lost, restoring the body to its “pre-diseased state.”
Luis Reyes leads a science panel
Once humanity does possess the ability to return the body to a condition of normalcy, the next logical step would be to move beyond normal, to improve the body, to restore things we may never have had in the first place. When our gouged-out eyes, or destroyed brain cells, or even a squandered youth can be reborn, what will we learn of ourselves? When our relationships with one another aren’t burdened by the inexorable ticking of a biological clock, or when companionship itself is secured with a few genetic adjustments designed to dampen the voices of doubt or regret, what will happen to the daily struggle to maintain-or even grow-ourselves? Humanity is terrified of loss, whether it is physical loss, the loss of loved ones, lost memory or even a lost opportunity.
The Limitations of Genetic Technology tackles these questions. The four main characters in this piece experience loss on a profound level, loss that lies well beyond the physical being. Each employs genetic technology to fill the void only to learn that science is ill-equipped to fix them, is unable to return each of them to a pre-diseased state.
The Limitations of Genetic Technology, opens Nov. 13; plays Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 4 pm; through Dec. 12. Tickets: $18-$22. Theater of NOTE, 1570 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood; 323.305.7200. For tickets and information, visit www.geneticlimitations.com or our LA Stage Alliance page at http://www.lastagealliance.com/gentech/.
