A sort of scientific slang for “circumstellar habitable zone,” the Goldilocks Zone refers to the areas in outer space that could theoretically support earthlike life. In Ian August’s play The Goldilocks Zone, it refers to the conditions necessary for a couple to conceive. Which, by the play’s end, we see are just as complex and tangled as with its scientific counterpart.
“The story’s about two couples, one gay and one straight,” August tells us. “The straight couple is having difficulty conceiving, so [the woman] puts an ad on Craigslist looking for a donor. One of the men in the gay couple responds.” The woman, Franny, and the man, Andy, decide he’ll be her donor. The trouble is neither of them tell their significant other about the plan. When the partners, Ray and Matt respectively, find out, there’s a significant emotional fallout. “This play is literally about the conditions that need to exist in the lives of these people in order to conceive.”
Part of the Wordsmyth Reading Series, Goldilocks is a mixture of humor and drama. “It’s not a flat-out comedy, but like so many dramatic things that we go through in our lives, there are moments when something funny happens.”
August says the play isn’t autobiographical but admits some of the dialogue between the gay men onstage loosely echos the conversations he’s had with his husband. “My friends, we’re all in our early thirties and all of these things are the things that we’re talking about and going through right now. So, yes, there is a bit of an autobiographical element to it, but it’s a situation lots of people are going through.”
7 p.m. Studio 101 at Spring Street Studios, 1824 Spring. For information, call 281‑788‑8007 or visit wordsmyththeater.org. Free.
Mon., March 9, 7 p.m., 2015
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2015.