By Kai Maristed

Come for the frolic and high energy professional stagecraft; stay to experience this creative ensemble’s answer to: Who the hell are we, facing the end?

The End Is Nigh, a cataclysmic comedy, created by the LaB Ensemble, staged at The Foundry, 101 Rogers St., Cambridge, through March 22. Tickets are Pay-what-you-can.

Jesse Garlick in a scene from The End is Nigh. Photo: Chris McIntosh

You walk through the high painted black doors at the end of a wide busy hall into the dark theater. The stage is a floor space defined by banks of risers for the audience, excellent tech (lighting, sound, music), and what will be multi-purpose props.

A bumptious guy bounces out from the rear curtains and warms up the crowd with a series of gross jokes (inflatable penis, ‘am I hot or am I hot?’ etc.). Audience participation a must. You start to wonder…

But then he makes way for the deliciously named Consuela Hobbs (Hampton Richards), host of the game show ‘The End Is Nigh.’ (Nudge-nudge, you get the allusion to philosopher Hobbes, who famously described life as ‘nasty, brutish, and short.’) This Hobbs is tall, and alluring, with long, greenish-purplish locks and a swirly skirt to match—but also, if only by job description, capable of nasty. But as for brutish, could such a beauty possibly sink so low? Stay tuned.

Cast members dancing the can-can in The End is Nigh. Photo: Chris McIntosh

Tonight, joyful Consuela, accompanied by a singing emcee (Jesse Garlick) who reminds you not a little of Joel Gray in Cabaret, and three miming comic relievers in fabulous shape-shifting costumes, is on a roll. Her show is the last show standing. Really. There are no others left in the show-eat-show colosseum: no Survivors, no Reality TV, no (cue healthy laughter) political debates. And it’s all thanks to you (generous viewers) and those in the live audience! The voters. Tonight’s show will be your special reward. Three contestants who think they’re vying for an ocean cruise (but you fans know how the show has always ended, namely with everyone at each other’s throats, and one death if not three. That’s why it’s a winner!) Tonight’s lucky contestants will face off against the Four Horses of the Apocalypse, starting with our Mystery Guest, Ecological Disaster.

The horses duly trot, walk, drag, or gallop via a quick intro, one by one. More fantastic costuming and maskwork. Next we meet the hapless, optimistic loser-contestants, shmucks drawn from the depths of our non-stockholder society. All wearing red clown noses. Let the lethal games begin!

This first part, like all that follows, happens within a sort of sustained, controlled explosion of color, movement, and sound, hijinks, jokes—much funnier now, you’re laughing out loud—acrobatics, and mime. (Note to friends: leave your psychedelics at home; you won’t miss them.) The solo onstage musician (Enrique Babilonia, keyboard, horn), also part of the cast, charms you with his virtuosity and ease. Speaking of the cast, thanks to tripling and quadrupling of roles (by Karina Ithier, Glen Moore, Ben Heath) it is legion. Lightning costume changes are always fun.

A shark attack in The End is Nigh. Photo: Chris McIntosh

But these four horses are no slapstick joyride. They are your imminent fears. Presciently, given the past two weeks’ creep toward apocalypse, War is saved for last. In art, when the topic is dead serious it’s best approached with some mordant streak of humor. Here, it often rises to the absurd. The proceedings work because there is a clear narrative structure underpinning the madcap vignettes—one memorable scene serves up rising seas (made of contractors’ blue tarps) filled with yucky flotsam of civilization in which the three contestants flail to keep chins above water. And, even if the story line doesn’t always logically quite hold water (ahem), it amazes you how director Jason Slavick has managed to pack so much entertainingly caustic parody into an hour and change of run time. With room for an original, laudable musical score! So come for the frolic and high energy professional stagecraft; stay to experience this creative ensemble’s answer to: Who the hell are we, facing the end?

New growth takes time to bloom. It’s taken a couple of years for the tastefully, beautifully, redesigned foundry building on Rogers Street in East Cambridge to find its best uses and artists, and public. On the night of March 12^th, the multiple spaces were crowded with participants of all ages, there for a variety of creative events and projects. The excitement crackled. Congratulations to the leadership and all supporters. For the Foundry, and its remarkable theater ensemble, the LaB, the end is nowhere near nigh.

Kai Maristed’s work has been published in Agni, Ploughshares, Five Points, and elsewhere. Her books include Broken Ground, praised by John Coetzee, and Belong to Me, starred by PW. This fall saw standing ovations for her full-length play, Paul and Émile. Her new, prize-winning story collection, The Age of Migration, will be out in July.