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Constellation’s latest play, Maple and Vine, involves an escape to 1950s suburbia

Even if you’re skeptical that 1950s suburbia was actually great for most people, it’s easy to dream of a simpler, easier life. Wouldn’t it be nice to escape the complexities of the 21 st century, our addiction to the internet, the changing climate, the near-impossibility of owning a house if you’re under the age of 40? Why not join a society for creative anachronism, especially if the anachronism is not medieval, but 1950s suburbia?

The latest Constellation play dives that question. It’s called Maple and Vine, and it’s about a 21 st-century couple – Katha and Ryu – who have that chance. They take it, and it ends up being more complicated than they expected.

Louisville-based actor Megan Massie, who stars at Katha, and Cassie Hakken, Constellation’s marketing director, joined me in the studio to tell me about the production.

Alex Chambers runs WFIU’s arts desk, and produces and hosts WFIU’s Inner States, a weekly podcast and radio show about arts, culture, and ideas from southern Indiana and beyond. He’s the co-creator of How to Survive the Future, a podcast about the present, produced in partnership with Indiana Humanities. He has a PhD in American Studies, with a dissertation called Climate Violence and the Poetics of Refuge, and a book of poems called Bindings: A Preparation, about domestic life and empire. In his spare time, he teaches audio storytelling at the IU Media School. When he’s not in the woods gathering sound, you might see him out for a run on the streets of Bloomington.