Under the Radar Review: The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy, This Time in Person

A stage adaptation of Stanisław Lem’s short story “The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy,” which takes place on a rocket in outer space and features multiple versions of the same character might seem like it would require a huge budget. But back in 2020 during the Covid-19 lockdown, performer Joshua William Gelb proved otherwise. Along with playwright Josh Luxenberg and director Jonathan Levin, Gelb executed a live-streamed solo adaptation that became a pandemic theater hit, demonstrating the depth of creative ingenuity even with limited means (this version of The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy is still available to watch on his YouTube channel).

So the idea of Gelb and his co-creators coming up with an in-person version of 7th Voyage was fraught with risk at the outset. I’m happy to report that with this revised and scaled-up version of The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy, now running as part of this year’s Under the Radar Festival, Gelb & co. have managed to re-create the astonishment of those earlier virtual performances and find fresh ways to dazzle us.

Lem’s original short story revolves around a time loop, in which Egon Tichy finds himself trapped while traveling through a gravitational vortex in space, thus why he’s confronted with different versions of himself for different days of the week. This could potentially be a happy accident. At the beginning of the tale, Egon finds himself needing a second person to fix a mechanical issue after a meteorite hits his rocket—a problem having more than one version of himself on hand could solve. Unfortunately, it turns out that even infinite future selves aren’t immune to those age-old flaws of self-interest, laziness, and hubris, which is how Egon ultimately finds himself dealing with multiple selves in his rocket and no solution to that mechanical issue in sight.

In that sense, Lem’s short story is as much a send-up of timeless human foibles as it is a hilarious exploration of time travel. Luxenberg’s stage adaptation may dial up the slapstick high jinks while toning down the dry bemusement of Lem’s first-person prose, but that doesn’t mean he shortchanges the satirical aspects. This in-person version of 7th Voyage elaborates on its inner human comedy through heavy-handed lines of dialogue that occasionally betrays the sense of slender dramatic material being stretched thin even at 55 minutes (the streaming production runs 35 minutes).

Within the black-box space of New York Theatre Workshop’s Fourth Street Theatre, we see Gelb interacting with previously recorded versions of himself, in a near-seamless combination of physical ingenuity and digital trickery. On two large screens, one to the left and the other to the right of the re-created closet space in Peiyi Wong’s scenic design, Jesse Garrison surrounds the set with a blueprint-like video design, creating an appropriately high-tech ambience. And though we see Gelb arrange himself into the appropriate positions in his enclosed space to set up for the next scene with one or more of his alternate video selves, seeing the preparation doesn’t diminish the illusion itself.

M. Florian Staab’s atmospheric yet cheeky original music and sound design also contributes much to the show’s impact, as does Marika Kent’s lighting design, with thin neon bulbs radiating from the closet at the center of the stage. Ultimately, though, this is Gelb’s triumph. Pandemic quarantine may have come and gone, but the endearingly scrappy spirit and stage magic of The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy shines as brightly as ever.