Future Anxiety

Cryogenically frozen human brains are being revived and given new bodies as the world goes merrily to hell in Laurel Haines' new black comedy about a dystopian future, now playing at the reliably cheeky Flea Theater. Served with speed and style by director Jim Simpson and his resident acting company, the youthful Bats, the show makes for a reasonably diverting 80 minutes, though one can't help noticing that the script is awfully thin.

Crafted as a mosaic of loosely interlocking characters, "Future Anxiety" works best in its comic conceits. On an environmentally dying Earth, slavery has made a comeback, with American citizens who have defaulted on debt being "collected" and sent to hard labor in China. In a devastated Africa, the animals have become so outraged at people that they attack them on sight, even tourists gaping from inside armored tanks. Born-again Christians are trying to repopulate the planet through technology that allows a pregnant woman to carry as many as 12 fetuses to term. Allergies are so ubiquitous that dating singles consider it a deal-breaker if theirs don't match up. The U.S. government is making a new, smaller planet to which it plans to transport the wealthiest 1 percent of the population.

There's a great deal of doubling and redoubling done by the 23-member cast, but a number of actors still manage to pop. Brett Aresco is gleefully loopy as a con man obsessed with his ex-girlfriend and assembling a cult to build a spaceship and hijack that new planet. Alex Herrald has a mad glint in his eye as a blindly optimistic business operator oblivious to the chaos surrounding him. Katherine Folk-Sullivan gets funnier as her character, a kindhearted woman who once worked in a pet spa but is now reduced to a job as a "collector" of defaulters, sustains escalating physical injuries. Keola Simpson, as a homeless man, calmly delivers bitingly cynical survival advice with flair. Most amusing is the dance done by Raúl Sigmund Julia, as a Zenned-out former poet enslaved in Hong Kong, and Holly Chou, as his contemptuous, uptight supervisor, whom he so bewilders that she starts to write her own poetry just to get his opinion.

Kyle Chepulis' set of small multilevel platforms serves Simpson's ingenious staging well, and Patrick Metzger's elaborate sound design creates a perpetually electric air. The Flea's smart production values on an Off-Off-Broadway budget continue to impress.

When all is said and done, however, Haines' vision lacks the sharpness her concerns require. There's a glibness to the proceedings, and that extends to the performances. (Even Chou, as good as she is, gave essentially the same performance earlier this season in A.R. Gurney's "Office Hours.") The acting starts to acquire the same kind of presentational, self-aware sheen used in the Flea's patented pre-show announcements, delivered by cast members, about cell phones, subscriptions, and local restaurants. Challenge these youngsters more. They can take it.

Presented by and at the Flea Theater, 41 White St., NYC. April 28–May 26. Tue.–Fri., 7 p.m.; Sat., 3 and 7 p.m. (212) 352-3101, (866) 811-4111, www.theatermania.com, or www.theflea.org.