Ben
Brantley

February 24, 2015

It’s a gray, gray tomorrow that greets us in The Nether, Jennifer Haley’s very cunning and equally creepy new play about alternative lives in a future around the corner. When first seen, Laura Jellinek’s fantastical set for this satisfyingly disturbing production, which opened on Tuesday night at the Lucille Lortel Theater, shows a world that has been leached of color. Only the skin tones of the actors relieve the ash and rain-cloud palette of the opening scenes. Granted, we appear to be in an interrogation room, not the kind of place known for festive décor. But the dialogue suggests that what lies beyond this grim chamber is no brighter. Blue skies and leafy green trees, it seems, are a thing of the past. Then a door opens, and a corridor of sunlight cuts through the gloom. It’s emanating from a partly glimpsed, perfect sylvan landscape, a garden in which verdant nature has bowed gracefully to human order. Oh, let’s go there. Let’s go to paradise. On second thought, let’s not. This inviting Eden — which also features an enchanting Victorian manor house — isn’t real, though whenever you step into it, it might as well be. It is the custom-made reflection of one man’s fantasy. And we are told it is the most sophisticated example ever of a complete virtual universe, to be reached only online.