Show Response: SUB: An Underwater Workplace Comedy
by Theresa Buchheister and Reuven Glezer
Staff Pickers Reuven Glezer and Theresa Buchheister attended SUB by Alex Aguirre during its run at ERF June 4-7, 2026, and decided to do a Soapbox Response together!
TB:
Hi Reuven! We saw a play together last night! I will kick off our conversation about it, which is how I typically prefer to respond to shows (yacking with others)... One of the things I really love about Alex Aguirre’s vibe as a playwright is that he creates a very interesting container in which the action occurs. World-building, I guess you could call it. This play takes place in the future in a submarine, stationed above San Francisco, which is now deep under water. As a fearful fan of submarine movies, I was super intrigued by this idea. I am sooooo scared of the ocean and also admire the power and mystery it holds. The idea of being in a metal tube in the ocean is one of the scariest things I can imagine. So, that is what I entered into this show feeling. How about you?
RG:
It kinda reminded me of Down Periscope a 1996 infamous flop about submarine war games that you wanna watch three vodka stingers deep - which is to say, as a former aquaphobe, I love being told we’re lost in the deep vast of the sea and then hijinks occur because you can’t get out. No escape! No portholes to plop out from! There’s a lot of tension built into “we’re trapped and hate each other” that Alex takes to the silliest of extremes. I once went down into a submarine (the USS Growler docked off Pier 86) and thought, wow no one gets out of here sane.
TB:
As a concept, I am really into that. More satires on submarines! Speaking of satire, I really felt like the characters who entered and exited the most were super tapped into the satire - Arnold, Cloë and Barnaby. They were Ludlum-esque, I kept thinking. I almost wanted more wild interjections and less world-building through monologuing. But that is personal preference, of course. Speaking of archetypes, I thought the costuming was a treat for all of these characters. I love to see that specificity in a cool, DIY production.
RG:
Very Ludlam. Everyone's existence is on the borderlands of extremity! The future is made up of people who have bits (beep beep I’ve just been informed not to call it “a bit”) which recalls of a kind of weirdo science fiction populated by writers like Mœbius - the future isn’t just bad, it’s incredibly strange and that strangeness is dangerous. And our in-house weirdos were bringing their A-game, I told Chloe Claudel after (who plays Cloë) that I had never seen her scream in a show before and that was such a thrill. And yes, Olivia Vaughn Hern’s costumes were top-tier. The design was so simple but effective, which is always a plus in my book. I know it’s not a Goat Exchange show, but Mitchell (Polonsky) helming gave it a similar vibe to their material that tends to oscillate between the maximal and the minimal in a way that served Alex’s play quite nicely.
TB:
Totally. Collaboration is so key on a project like this, and I am really glad that this team came together and also found this very cool space. It made me feel like I had time traveled back to 2006, as an audience member seeing a show, even though the play takes place in 2085. Very of the time when East Williamsburg was called Bushwick and all the warehouses had wild stuff happening in them. But back to collaboration! I love seeing how artists blend and layer their vibes and aesthetics. Sometimes it creates friction or does not fully make sense! But it is always interesting. And it always gets my wheels turning. A few thoughts I had throughout: Would it compromise the power of Cloë to have all of the characters amplified in some way. Cloë had a Madonna mic, used to great, powerful effect. But I wanted it to be harder for the characters to communicate in the submarine, so that they would need devices to assist them… walkie talkies, tin cans on strings, PA systems, a mic clipped to the can that Peter (Nick Walther) was in the entire time (what commitment!!!). That kind of thing. I also wondered if they could be inside of a plexi glass submarine. That would feel even more claustrophobic and tense, which would be so wonderfully punctured by the satire. Also, periscopes. I want periscopes! Creating a space in which my mind can expand and contract and fold over on itself is very special. SUB created that space.
RG:
Let it be known Theresa’s wish list for an ideal show includes periscopes. But! I agree that there was, I felt, a physical claustrophobic element missing that would have completed the total immersion of being in a sweaty, metal sub in the late 21st century. The open catwalk with a metal frame was delightful, don’t get me wrong, but there was some kind of wonkier, more pressure-driven element that felt like it was being hinted at in terms of the dramaturgy. There’s a really specific kind of ask for an audience to struggle with experiencing the show (I am pro a little work for an audience) that reaps its own rewards. I kind of wondered what it would be like if we just experienced the show like it was a metal door and we only saw what happened via portholes. There’s something about subtraction that reignites an audience’s imagination and adds a delicious layer of tension in the theatrical experience.
TB:
YES! I want to watch through a peephole or porthole or periscope hole! Two friends told me to go to the Duchamp exhibit at MoMa (so I will) and there is a piece he never told anyone about that was to be viewed through a peephole. (I guess the actual piece lives in Philly). We (the audience) had to do some work to experience SUB, with the runway set up. The tennis heads, going back and forth. But I wanted to have it be harder! Limited! You cannot possibly see or hear it all! But, like you said, there were fantastic hints at this kind of fully immersive submersive potential in this current iteration, so I hope they keep going with it! The play takes place 59 years from now. How did you relate to that futuristic element? Did it feel like sci-fi to you? I think I thought it would, but it sort of forced me to think about the difference between sci-fi and apocalyptic.
RG:
It did! Which, from my understanding, is Alex’s usually chosen mode? Felt a little Star Wars-esque with the mentioning of ships docking and strange militias inspired by…music genres? The way Alex worldbuilds gave this a satirical veneer over the whole business, and what I really think a good science-fiction does isn’t so much as imagine a future as capture a future, by which I mean it’s less about sitting down and thinking what will the world look like 59 years from now but more about thinking what echoes of the now will still be recognizable through the fragments. The first cinematic Dune installment featured bagpipes when the Herald of the Change initiates the events of the story, which Villeneuve explained as kind of a callback to a familiar humanity (one of the smarter moves in what I found to be a generally weak adaptation). But that’s the thing, and I think Alex gets at this, the future will be familiar in terrible ways. No more cocaine or California, but there will be definitely sick rich fucks in who essentially live 24/7 in kayfabe. I think critically the lines between the dystopic and science-fictional are thin, and SUB freely teases those lines and for all the cum-powered DNA bullets, it’s still class warfare 20,000 leagues below.
TB:
Dang, Reuven. This is excellent. Exactly why I like conversation post show more than sitting down solo to write a review, personally. Linking the past and present into a fully realized future world is sending me into Music Town. I did enjoy the selections in SUB, but now I am wondering… what music was made and distributed between 2026 and 2085? Question for the playwright! I could also imagine that they are stuck with their CD collection from the 1990s, because everything else was destroyed. Music and culture, as well as cum, are identity-based weapons in this world. But not of mass destruction.
RG:
T, I’d argue cum is, in fact, a weapon of mass destruction. But to loop back around to a previous point of yours, questions like “how did they end up stuck with a record collection from the 1990s/2000s?” is one of those punctures in the hull of the world I wanted to see / address. Spoilers: when Alex (who plays an unfortunately terminal boytoy) gets his face melted to a pop punk track (in this case the 2007 hit Thnks fr the Mmrs by Fall Out Boy) I did wonder about the dramaturgy of the song choice! This is a world where the crusty ex-punks and nepo baby fashion designers are, in some way, still in tune with Fall Out Boy and Slipknot?? It’s a big choice! Here we are, in the Atlantis of the anthropocene, and somehow we’ve still got nu metal blaring here. I think we should tell Slipknot.
TB:
It is a big choice, indeed. And you know, I think the last thing I will say is - Here’s to big choices! More of that, please! I tip my hat to Alex Aguirre and Mitchell Polonsky and the entire team for going big! And I cannot wait to SUB to ride again!
all photos: Jose Miranda