In words and music, Octet examines internet fallout

In Octet, running through Sept. 7 at Hudson Valley Shakespeare, eight internet addicts gather at a self-help meeting in a church basement to save themselves and warn the world about the rampaging monster that devours souls and infects human interaction.

For five years, artistic director Davis McCallum pursued Octet, a "chamber choir musical" that features complex eight-part a cappella harmonies often delivered while performers dance or run around the stage. The show debuted in 2019 with an extended off-Broadway run, but the rights holder kept a tight grip after the pandemic killed plans for a film and Broadway production, McCallum says.

Productions are now scheduled for Chicago and Toronto. In Philipstown, the HVS cast delivers solid performances that elicited strong applause on opening night (Aug. 16) as each actor took solo turns and melded back into the drum-tight ensemble. Several scenes animate the frantic scrolling and trolling and fretting and freaking out that transpires on corrosive online forums.

The title reflects the number of characters but also refers to the eight bits that form a byte, the smallest nugget of computer data.

Dave Malloy, who lives in Beacon, wrote the dialogue and thoroughly original score, which seesaws between lush harmonies and more angular passages. References include doo-wop, barbershop, shape notes, Gregorian chants and Tuvan throat singing.

Clever wordplay and rapid dialogue abound; Malloy conveys an awful lot of jargon surrounding the machines taking over the world and leaving grievous human fallout.

Prudes beware: many F-bombs are dropped, and Eddy the incel (Adam Bashian) laments in graphic detail the content of his foray into pornography at age 9. Toby (Luis Quintero) despairs that "an entire generation of children growing up has seen" a video with a horrifying act. "They will be the greatest monsters humanity ever created."

Calling internet consumers "homogenized sheep," blind to the numbing and dumbing, he asks: "Where have all the punk rock kids gone?"

A sad interchange between antisocial Eddy and Karly (Melissa Mahoney) about the insidious aspects of porn captures dating-site lunacy.

As Henry, Gunnar Manchester's dancing piled more hilarity onto an already funny number about gaming addicts. Testifying to Anand Nagraj's talent, his spot-on Marvin, the geek know-it-all, is a 180-degree pivot from his bombastic portrayal of Antipholus of Ephesus in A Comedy of Errors earlier this season.

Jill Paice (Jessica) presents pitch-perfect, deer-in-the-headlights expressions as the white woman canceled after her public flip-out went viral. Alexis Tidwell's Paula elicits empathy as her husband scorns her in bed and scrolls on, oblivious to the fact that a glass of water on the nightstand has gathered dust.

The hope is that the internet can redeem people like Velma, who hasn't "really talked to anyone in like two years." Mia Pak slays with the character's poignant material. On Aug. 18, after the show's only solo take as everyone else reposes in a drug-induced coma for five minutes, she cried and subtly dabbed her cheek with a tissue.

Velma revels in meeting someone online who is "just like me" but lives across the sea. Arguably, this is a human connection (bot? catfisher?), but she stops cutting herself with hashtag slashes and no longer sees herself as fat, gross, "stupid and lazy / sad and crazy."

Octet opens with an elegiac pining for a pristine forest, which represents the pre-internet days that have been bulldozed by the information superhighway. The remedy is to find a field (sans Wi-Fi or hot spot) and "lie there in the grass / let the morning hours pass." Maybe bring along a Walkman or boombox and blast some punk rock.

Hudson Valley Shakespeare is located at 2015 Route 9. For tickets, which cost $10 to $100 each, see hvshakespeare.org or call 845-265-9575.