RAGE OF THE AGES
Rage of the Ages is pseudo science fiction, populated by mortals and superior Others. The mortals are at varying stages of knowledge about the existence of the Others, but during the course of the play all are introduced to them.
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It is never made quite clear who or what these Others are, but the ones we meet are named Gaius and Chamile, and their names and abilities suggest godlike stature. But Chamile scoffs at the idea that Gaius is a god (though Gaius makes it clear that he’s not a man). And Chamile makes it equally clear that she is human, though somehow she has become–for now at least–immortal. Still, their names indicate that they’re of the earth. Gaea was the Greek earth goddess, and Chamile comes from the Greek root chamai, meaning “on the ground”–though “Gaius” could also refer to the Roman jurist, since the character is constantly passing judgment, and “Chamile” could refer to a chameleonlike habit of changing her past identities. Only one thing is completely clear: though Gaius is the stronger, they both have extraordinary powers.
The people in this case have no names. They are only the father, the son, and the woman (the son’s girlfriend). The father is afflicted with an odd paralysis (which Gaius caused, we find out, as a punishment). Though doctors can find nothing wrong, the father can’t feel anything anywhere in his entire body, and is thus bedridden. He sends his son in search of Gaius to plead his case for him, though he tells him nothing about the incident that angered Gaius, nor even about Gaius himself. What he does tell his son sounds a great deal like schizophrenic delusions, complete with conspiracy-theory rhetoric in the Thomas Pynchon vein.
Director Drew Martin’s staging is clean and precise and mostly on target. He does, however, waste a marvelous opportunity to use that marble slab in the play’s climactic scene.
