The Happy Garden of Life

Imagine a world where death and old age are nearly defeated — a spacious, peaceful place where you want for nothing and no one is ever in a hurry. The skies are clear, the water is clean, and all roads lead to perfection.

Set in a near-future utopia enforced by population control, The Happy Garden of Life follows the lives of various citizens caught up in a system of government-encouraged suicide. Through multiple storylines that converge in a hospital waiting room where a woman is about to give birth to triplets, The Happy Garden of Life considers how one person’s worth can be qualified over another’s. Would you like to live in such a world?

Written by Anna Jastrzembski and directed by Jenna Hoffmann, The Happy Garden of Life is a new play inspired by the short story “2BR02B” by Kurt Vonnegut.