{"id":67304,"date":"2026-07-22T10:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/?p=67304"},"modified":"2026-07-22T10:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:38:10","slug":"theatre-review-dazzling-octet-reminds-us-of-theaters-unique-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/?p=67304","title":{"rendered":"Theatre Review: Dazzling \u2018Octet\u2019 Reminds Us Of Theater\u2019s Unique Power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Peter Thomas Ricci<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Halfway through Goodman Theatre\u2019s staging of Dave Malloy\u2019s phenomenal musical \u201cOctet,\u201d I considered two memories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first was when I purchased my first iPhone in 2011. Although the cursed device had been available for five years, it was freshly accessible through Verizon\u2019s cellular network, and my brother and I devoted an entire evening to scouring the hardware and software capabilities of our new phones \u2013 browsing the Internet, sending each other text messages (from our respective rooms five feet apart), and connecting our e-mail accounts. In the weeks that followed, I operated in a tech-induced euphoria: I could read and send e-mails from the train! I could engage in street photography while also listening to David Bowie\u2019s \u201cStation to Station\u201d from the same device. To paraphrase the most famous line from Mike Daisey\u2019s monologue \u201cThe Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,\u201d it felt like magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second was a few years later when the iPhone\u2019s profound threats to mental health (if not society writ large) first became clear to me. I was riding the Red Line north to my apartment in Andersonville, and the passenger sitting next to me was immersed in a game of \u201cCandy Crush.\u201d Although I remained, at the time, committed to my beloved iPhone, my use of the device was borderline analogue \u2013 I answered questions on the browser, I checked e-mails, I listened to radio and podcasts. I had no notifications established, had never played a game, and had successfully limited my app library to a single homepage. Contrast that with the passenger next to me, who devoted their entire ride (from Lake all the way to Bryn Mawr) playing \u201cCandy Crush.\u201d The mere memory of their concentration makes me woozy, and it was my initiation into the tech\u2019s ability to distract and harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I share those memories because they demonstrate how \u201cOctet\u201d represents the very finest qualities of Chicago theater. Dazzling, challenging, exhausting, and ultimately inspiring, this is a musical that must be experienced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set in an undisclosed meeting space in an undisclosed city, \u201cOctet\u201d concerns eight individuals who all struggle with unique iterations of Internet and tech addiction. Taking place in real time across a ~100 minute meeting, the individuals take turns sharing their addictions in song, and a number of group numbers punctuate the action. Throughout the show, Malloy writes with power, grace, and unflinching honesty about the self destruction that tech addictions inspire, whether it be mobile gaming, social media mentions, pornography, dating, or online debates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such profundity, though, occurs entirely without musical accompaniment; instead, the musical is a cappella, and the dizzying brilliant cast of \u201cOctet\u201d profound their own counter melodies and percussion entirely through their voices and bodies. Indeed, the cast members must be acknowledged \u2013 Neala Barron, Jonah Cochin, Elliot Esquivel, Joryhebel Ginorio, Jordan Golding, Teressa La Gamba, Ryder Dean McDaniel, Sam Shankman, and Grace Steckler \u2013 as they all fearlessly commit to their characters and their incredibly challenging dispositions. And they do so with a relentlessness that is critical to the show\u2019s power. Performed without an intermission, the musical reminded me of \u201cWit,\u201d the famed Pulitzer Prize-winning play from Margaret Edson that brutally dissects a woman\u2019s fatal struggle with cancer across one draining 100-minute act. Such shows inevitably carry risk \u2013 the audience\u2019s attention may waver, the show\u2019s focus and intensity may weaken, the actors and production crew may slip \u2013 but when the talent is as abundant as it is in \u201cOctet,\u201d the effect is one with no comparison in other artistic mediums. There we are, trapped with these sad, desperate characters trying to manage their addictions, and with no respite that an intermission would undoubtedly provide \u2013 much like how a tech addict may feel amidst multi-hour browsing or posting sessions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theater is immediate, theater is urgent, and \u201cOctet\u201d is among the finest examples of that most-necessary truth in these fraught times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Playing through Aug. 2 at The Goodman Theatre<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Peter Thomas Ricci Halfway through Goodman Theatre\u2019s staging of Dave Malloy\u2019s phenomenal musical \u201cOctet,\u201d I considered two memories. The first was when I purchased my first iPhone in 2011. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,39,245,20],"tags":[372,2401,492,2402,298,2400,1822],"class_list":["post-67304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-music-news","category-musical-theatre","category-reviews","tag-chicago-theatre","tag-dave-malloy","tag-goodman-theatre","tag-iphone","tag-live","tag-octet","tag-theatre-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67306,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67304\/revisions\/67306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}