This weekend, buy tickets for that show about a turtleneck-wearing, fanatically goal-oriented young woman who dropped out of college to found an ambitious tech startup in Silicon Valley, which was built on a revolutionary device that didn’t work, deceiving millions.
Oh, I’m not talking about the new Elizabeth Holmes documentary—though the timing is impeccable. What I’m referring to is Restless Artist Theatre’s new production, Burst, which playwright Rachel Bublitz first released into the world in 2018. And while it isn’t, exactly, the story of Holmes’ ill-fated startup Theranos, there’s no question that Burst was born from the same primordial goo.
In this story, the company is Tactix, and our cutthroat visionary is Sarah Boyd (played by RAT’s Alexandra Jobe), a young, driven, whip-smart, red-lipstick-wearing U.C. Berkeley dropout. She pairs her determination with the actual scientific knowledge of her business partner, Jennifer Weaver (Sarah Keller)—her old college friend and now chief technology officer—and the two are working around the clock to usher humanity into a post-plastic era and rid the planet of our reliance on indestructible plastics.
There’s just one problem: Their technology doesn’t work.
Set in Boyd’s Mountain View office at 10 p.m., the play opens as Sarah, dressed in the tech-bro business-casual uniform she has intentionally cultivated—a black turtleneck, black pants and a puffy vest, as if she might at any moment join a river-cleanup crew—rehearses her carefully crafted presentation for potential investors. The talk is full of hyperbole, aimed at firing up dreamers who (hopefully) have deep pockets and only the shallowest understanding of biochemistry. Whereas most people calm their nerves by going home, putting on their PJs and eating ice cream, Sarah guzzles whiskey from her office’s bar cart and rehearses her image over and over.
Then, in walks Jennifer with a dismal report—the latest trial on finding a method to get plastic to biodegrade has failed … again. While Sarah’s been out there plugging Tactix’s revolutionary technology as if it were a done deal, Jennifer has been plugging away tirelessly in the lab and getting no further than they were from the start. And to make matters worse, Sarah’s lawsuit against their old college professor for defamation—basically calling out the science as a fabrication—continues in the morning, with Jennifer expected to testify, under oath, that the science works.
And then, as if there weren’t enough pressure, there’s the reporter headed their way for a late-night interview with Sarah for the profile he’s writing.
Only it’s not a he at all. It’s a she—Alexis Lyons (Alejandra Linares)—a last-minute replacement whose sights are set on a big feature story. Although Sarah is initially disappointed to be relegated to the “girl” reporter, assuming she’ll be asked softball questions about her morning routine or lipstick shade, she’s immediately put on the back foot when she learns that Alexis has really done her homework, and she might have dirt on Tactix that could be very bad for business.
Jobe’s ability to convey Sarah’s icy façade, despite its increasing number of cracks, is impressive. She’s the only character onstage for every scene in the 100-or-so-minute play, and she’s required to perform lengthy monologues (full of scientific language) in a way that showcases both her bravado and her belligerence while also making her seem sympathetic. You can almost … almost empathize with her as she is confronted with someone who expects actual answers, not just hype.
Bublitz couldn’t have known (could she?) that AI—a revolutionary technology that appears to be, by all accounts, a financial bubble ready to burst—would be such a presence in our lives as we watch this story play out onstage. And she couldn’t have known that a documentary about Elizabeth Holmes—a creepy look at how Holmes doesn’t seem to have learned anything—would be in theaters now. Yet here we are, and the parallels between the play and modern-day events are downright eerie.
This really makes me think about how some things never change: Women still have to work harder to prove themselves in Silicon Valley. There is no magic pill for the world’s ills. Dreamers with unrestrained access to cash are still dangerous. And money can’t fix everything.
Restless Artist Theatre, at 295 20th St., in Sparks, presents Burst through Monday, Nov. 9, with performances on Fridays and Saturday sat 7:30 p.m.; Sundays at 2:30 p.m.; and Mondays at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $26.39; $22.25 for seniors; and $12.94 for students. For information, go to rattheatre.com.