Conversations about AI

Comedy collides with sci-fi in new SF play

How do we know that the world we're living in is real? It's a question that philosophers have grappled with for centuries, and one that has gained more cultural currency in the age of virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

It's also the question at the heart of the play “My Home on the Moon” by Hmong-Vietnamese American playwright Minna Lee, now making its world premiere at San Francisco Playhouse.

“I got the idea for the play originally in a roller rink called Southgate Roller Rink in Seattle, where I grew up,” says Lee, who uses gender-neutral pronouns. “This was in 2019. I was at the time witnessing a lot of gentrification happening around the city, and I was sort of in disbelief that we could still have a roller rink that everyone could still skate around in. I also was thinking about how I saw a lot of regulars there, and the music was always the same every night. And I began wondering, what if this was a simulation? What if it was already gone, and the best way that people could get civilians to get used to change was putting them in a simulation? That way we wouldn't act up against corporations and all that. What if that was the way they kept us happy and away from obstructing

their plans?”

As Lee started to formulate the play, the virtual roller rink of their initial idea gradually morphed into a roller diner and finally into a pho restaurant.

“It's a sci-fi adventure comedy about a Vietnamese restaurant that is struggling against gentrification,” Lee says. “The restaurant receives a mysterious grant from a tech company promising to make their wildest business dreams come true, but there's a hidden catch

that raises profound questions about the nature of reality.”

“I've been pitching it as a pho restaurant in the Matrix,” Lee

adds.

When director Mei Ann Teo first read an early draft of the play, “I could tell both the striking ambition of grappling with these themes and the comedic delight of how Minna envisions the world, coupled with no hesitation in looking at darkness in the face,” says Teo, who also uses they/them pronouns. “I just thought, oh my goodness, you're doing a lot in this that really appeals to me and feels im

PHOTOS BY JESSICA PALOPOLI — SAN FRANCISCO PLAYHOUSE Sharon Omi, left, and Jenny Nguyen Nelson star in San Francisco Playhouse's “My Home on the Moon.”

Sharon Omi as Lan reminisces about her childhood on the moon with a giant noodle puppeteered by Erin Mei-Ling Stuart in San Francisco Playhouse's “My Home on the Moon.”