Preview: Trapped in a Grocery Store in a Post Apocalyptic World: Frozen Section at Catastrophic Theatre

It is a scenario easily understandable to most Houstonians used to dealing with the sudden calamities of nature. They’re hurrying to get in supplies before a hurricane or ice storm hits and perhaps they’ve tried to stretch time too far. Suddenly the power goes out and for a time, however brief or long, they are trapped inside a store with strangers.

Playwright Lisa D’Amour who hails from New Orleans with its own similar weather experiences, has fashioned a play Frozen Section about a group of people in a post apocalyptic world confined to a grocery store where they are taking safe harbor. Asked how long they’ve been there, D’Amour says she doesn’t know. “But I sense that it’s been a while. But I don’t know if a while is a couple of months or a couple of years.”

When she began writing, she says, she didn’t know if it was a weather event or a post apocalyptic environment they were living in. “But I knew that they were all trying to be in this store together and act as if everything was okay.”

The play was commissioned by Catastrophic Theatre where it is making its world premiere. There are eight cast members.

Asked if she’d ever experienced something like this, D’Amour says “Yes I have. I live in New Orleans so I share climate issues with Houston. That’s exactly what I was thinking because I had read a lot about the blackouts during the ice storm and I also just know that feeling of just waiting for a weather event to pass or waiting for the power to come back on and it often creates a space where you’re interacting with people you wouldn’t usually interact with as you try to wait out the situation.”

As she was writing it, “It became clear to me this was a time when electrical grids have collapsed,” she says. ” Jason [Nodler, Castastrophic Artistic Director] and I have decided that probably everyone is living on generators now. Some kind of solar generator or gas generator. The grid has collapsed. We do know that it is a very different world from the world we’re living in now,” D’Amour says.

“You feel like this is a group of people who are cosplaying grocery store in order to hang on to some sense that things can be normal. That we can have a routine. That we don’t have to be afraid of what’s coming next. ”

And, of course, after a number of days, someone wants to get out.

“One of the youngest members of the community, a cashier named Sage has decided that they want to leave. Part of the story that follows is the community supporting Sage but being worried about Sage because no one knows what’s out there,” D’Amour says.

The play can be followed in realistic terms with a narrative arc, but it can also be seen as “poetry, metaphor and music, she says. “It’s really a play that has a lot of language systems that you are following, of humor in the piece, so I think you can experience it on several different levels.”

A natural question arise about what are these people eating.

“The grocery store still has processed food and and canned food. They may also have a well-preserved head of iceberg lettuce wrapped very tightly in plastic. But you sense that a lot of the things like fresh fruits and vegetables are actually plastic or imitation just to make them feel a little bit better. And there are still some things in the frozen section.

“You get the the feeling they’re actually getting their nutrients from other places .Like you see them taking pills in the course of the play. Food is very scarce in this environment.

D’Amour has built a cheat day or daily cheat moment into the play.

“One thing that structures the play is Break Time. It seems like one break a day they get to eat junk food or processed food.”

A coyote, whose presence in the play is very important to some of the things that happen, makes its entrance and befriends Sage “and wreaks other kinds of trickster coyote havoc,” D’Amour says.

D’Amour who was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the 2011 Susan Smith Blackburn prize for her play Detroit, applauds the work Catastrophic Theatre brings to its stages.

“The fact that Catastrophic is premiering three new works this year is extraordinary. And so important. At a time when many theaters are having to pull back on their programming, to have them take the risk on three new works. Houston is really lucky to have them for that reason. I feel like Catastrophic was like ‘We’re going to lean into the risk.'”

Performances are scheduled for April 4-19 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays, A special Monday night performance will be announced. At Midtown Arts Center Houston, 3400 Main. Recommended for audiences 12 and older. For more information, call 713-521-4533 or visit matchouston.org. Pay-What-You-Can (Suggested: $40).