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Absolutely Science Fiction! Presented by Word for Word and Z Space at Z Below, June 24 \u2013 July 19, 2026.The Big Space Fuck: The President shows off his rocket. Pictured: Ryan Tasker. Photo: Jessica Palopoli<\/p>\n
Few science-fiction authors command as much reverence as Ray Bradbury (\u201cFahrenheit 451\u201d) or Kurt Vonnegut (\u201cSlaughterhouse-Five\u201d). The writers never collaborated, but they each wove vivid, visionary tales in which humanity\u2019s worst instincts result in technology run amuck, totalitarian laws, and environmental collapse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For literary theatre troupe Word for Word,\u00a0 which pays tribute to both authors in \u201cAbsolutely Science Fiction!\u201d playing at Z Space through July 19, the work of both authors has frightening parallels to modern headlines that are impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeither Bradbury nor Vonnegut were particularly comfortable with their works being labeled as \u2018sci-fi\u2019 and would likely have preferred today\u2019s more popular term of \u2018speculative fiction,\u2019\u201d says Word for Word member and show director Delia MacDougall. \u201cBradbury wrote, \u2018People ask me to predict the future when all I want to do is prevent it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Word for Word will be paying tribute to both authors in \u201cAbsolutely Science Fiction!,\u201d which opened June 27 at Z Space. The troupe is performing\u00a0 \u201cThe Veldt,\u201d Bradbury\u2019s 1950 short about parents who let their automated home care for their child, and \u201cThe Big Space Fuck,\u201d Vonnegut\u2019s 1972 satire about rockets carrying human DNA and children suing their parents. As is Word for Word\u2019s\u00a0 practice , the stories will be read just as the authors wrote them, with actors bringing the characters and scenes to life. <\/p>\n
MacDougall, who began this project with only a passing familiarity with Vonnegut\u2019s work, says she was struck by the gallows humor of his words, and their pertinence.\u00a0 \u201cI find Vonnegut\u2019s comedic nihilism a refreshing counterpoint to the absurdity of this current moment,\u201d she says, \u201cthis headlong rush into an AI future that we have been warned will bring about human obsolescence and environmental devastation. Meanwhile, those same billionaires who race for AI prominence assure us that their penis-shaped rockets will provide us with a future on Mars, even as their spaceships spectacularly explode on the launch pad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Absolutely Science Fiction! Presented by Word for Word and Z Space at Z Below, June 24 \u2013 July 19, 2026.
The Big Space Fuck: The President shows off his rocket. Pictured: Ryan Tasker. Photo: Jessica Palopoli<\/p>\n
Although San Francisco\u2019s current tech abundance offered plenty of cutting-edge design inspirations, the director opted for an intentionally anachronistic look for \u201cThe Veldt.\u201d As MacDougall\u00a0 explains, portraying advanced, \u201cretro-futuristic\u201d tech wasn\u2019t nearly as challenging as reading decades-old stories unaltered.<\/p>\n
Bradbury\u2019s story takes its name from the South African landscape, which he portrays as idyllic by the story\u2019s all-white characters. MacDougall and set designer Kate Boyd decided that a tongue-in-cheek approach softened the more cringe elements in the story.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018The Veldt\u2019 is problematic not only for this embrace of a colonialist vision of Africa, but for the gender politics that most definitely belong to a world of the past,\u201d she says. \u201cThere is no updating it for a modern audience while keeping to the Word for Word form. Instead, [our]\u00a0 design emphasizes a sensibility of the past, without a nostalgia for it. The saturated colors have a distancing effect, like a butterfly pinned to a board. It is a world stuck in time.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Absolutely Science Fiction! Presented by Word for Word and Z Space at Z Below, June 24 \u2013 July 19, 2026
The Veldt: Lydia is comforted by the automated chair. Pictured: Nicole Odell. Photo credit: Jessica Palopoli<\/p>\n
MacDougall insists that although both \u201cAbsolutely Science Fiction!\u201d stories have their flaws \u2013 whether patriarchal stereotyping or overt cynicism \u2013 they actually share a common hope that humanity can and should evade its worst potential fate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe same year Vonnegut wrote \u2018The Big Space Fuck\u2019 he spoke at the very first Earth Day,\u201d she explains. \u201cAmericans demanded action on the environmental crisis and the EPA, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act became law. The Superfund was created to clean up toxic waste sites. DDT was banned. Proving that human action can pull us back from the brink of a dystopian future.\u201d<\/p>\n