The title, The Nether, designates a futuristic net-based “land” of virtual reality. It contains a particular branch of the not-real-life Nether territory known as The Hideaway. This can be accessed by self-identified internet users who, as pedophiles, can hook up with and abuse children. Because pornography is what drives the technology and people to use it, detective Morris, whose beat is The Nether, tracks down Sims, who originated it, and calls him in for questioning. Morris (Bi Jean Ngo) believes online crime is so dangerous that it’s even led to murder, so it must be stopped. Sims (assured Greg Wood), having cleverly created an avatar (Tim Moyer’s Doyle) to carry out business and deflect responsibility, yet defends himself. He maintains he’s never broken rules of internet use, that nothing’s been personalized. For instance, young girls, the main hostesses to users, look alike and love is involved in interaction with them. In Morris’s series of investigations, questions arise. Could virtual crime stop the real crime of making and selling child pornography? What about going on line to watch it and thus satisfy--or does it intensify?-- real appetites and action to abuse children in the real world? The crux of the problem under investigation is that users have become more like their virtual than real selves. As vicarious living no longer satisfies, they’re likely to explore not only sexually but mortally abusing children. In the near future will virtual crime make real crime not just possible but probable? What has internet usage of virtual reality already done in the case of The Nether? While acknowledging the power of Jennifer Haley’s play, compellingly forwarded by director Seth Rozin, I personally felt sick watching Emi Branes Huff as the sweet young Iris, whether real or fancied, going through her routine. Would a guest want to play games or try a few toys or would he prefer to get to “the act”? Being behind multi-framed windows may help Huff handle the task of portraying such abused innocence. Unfortunately, though, I felt the window stopped her soft voice being clearly heard even when she directly faced the audience. Another sickening if right-on performance is by Griffin Stanton-Ameisen’s detective Woodnut (a name suggesting he’s comical and thus inappropriate). Sent to find evidence to support Morris’s investigation, he gets too much first-hand. This substantiates the experience of Tim Moyer’s Doyle, who becomes really personally and consequently tragically involved in what happens in virtual reality. Greg Wood’s Sims deserves his clever villain’s status throughout just as Bi Jean Ngo as relentless Morris earns cheers. Melpomene Katakalos’s set reflects the play’s contrasts correspondingly lit by Maria Shaplin. A simple, dark area to one side downstage for the investigation is as different as can be from the white Victorian house with the windows in back of it and the surrrounding sunny green and blossoming garden of Netherland’s Hideaway. Much of the garden that occupies the side of the stage opposite the investigation room is used only toward the end of the play. Lawn and garden suggest an inviting place, perhaps an Eden anticipating a fall, until a time when a sinner trudges through it.
