ZOMBIE, OR NOT TO BE

There’s something rotting in Deadmark, and it’s not the zombies—it’s a science-denial conspiracy!

The humans of Ignorway destroyed the environment so badly that viruses ran rampant. One was a zombie virus, and eventually, the zombies abandoned the ruined land to create Deadmark, their rational, science-positive democracy. In this Hamlet-meets-zombies story, when Edda’s mother, the elected Lead Scientist, mysteriously goes missing, Agonista, Edda’s environmental lawbreaking businesswoman aunt, is selected to replace her. Greed-driven Agonista immediately starts dismantling sustainable energy sources in favor of oil. With the help of allies—vampire bat Bram, the enchanted floating skull Rick (of the Glob Theater)—Edda discovers her mother’s dark, humanized fate. The heroes quickly stage a production of the scheme and watch for Agonista’s guilty reactions. Adventurous twists and turns—exile, a naval battle, Zombies for the Ethical Treatment of Humans and their development of cruelty-free, lab-grown FeignBrain (“Make your next meal a no-brainer!”)—go alongside puns and Shakespearian winks. The horror elements are so campy and over-the-top that, despite the brain-eating monsters, it’s funny instead of scary. The resulting cartoonishness allows the story to get away with blunt moralizing without breaking the comedic tone, with the heavy-handedness played as part of the joke without undermining genuine messages. The zombies and Bram are shades of green; humans are racially ambiguous.

A standing ovation for undead environmentalist theater.