←Recommendations of Tesseract

There's a chaotic scene at the end of the film CHILDREN OF MEN... I kept thinking about that film while reading this. That movie plays in the back of my mind randomly. I've no doubt anyone who sees TESSERACT will experience a similar remembrance effect as they go about the rest of their lives. Sickles channels a pessimistic anger here that hopefully, hopefully can serve as a wake-up call to bigots and centrists alike. I think one of the most "thrilling" aspects, is that you know it's coming. Because we do. It does. And we have to stop it.

When I say this play devastated me, you shouldn't have any reason to think I’m exaggerating — this is Scott Sickles we’re talking about after all.

I think the most terrifying part about Tesseract isn’t that it feels so close to happening, but that it is already happening, in some form, all across our nation and our world. It is both a warning and a warped mirror, a plea and a primal scream. When the curtain falls, or you reach the last page, it will leave you changed.

This is a simply and utterly devastating play. And I mean that as a salute to its power, its craft, its gripping narrative. The harrowing loss of a child is made all the more horrific by the discovery that the child's identity and their physical person have been violated. What is also devastating is the way that this play functions as a cautionary tale. The seizure of power by religious extremists and the erasure of trans people seems entirely possible in our current political climate. I say this as one who lives in Florida.

Scott Sickles' TESSERACT is many things: a pulse-pounding international-intrigue thriller, a heartbreaking family drama, a horrifying dystopian nightmare, and above all else: a warning. Sweeping in scope and unbearably intimate, the story alternates between propulsive, stylized action and tiny moments of grace, courage, and devastation. An urgent howl of rage and cry for help, TESSERACT is a must-read, must-see tour-de-force.

As a writer, I was inspired by Sickles' imagination and the inherent theatricality in “Tesseract.” This is a play that will excite and challenge every creative member of any artistic team tasked with bringing it to brilliant life. As a father and a citizen of our planet in the current age, I was terrified by the horrifying plausibility of the dystopian world the playwright has created. Like the classics in this genre, sci-fi elements are skillfully tethered to undeniable truths. And the terrifyingly fragile lines between who we are and who we might become are blurred beyond recognition.

Stunning. Searing in its truth. Painful in its tragedy. Terrifying in its prophetic nature. Scott has been building a dark universe that is only a breath away from our own. The terrible weight of corrupted values threatens to crush all decency in this nation. This is heart breaking. This is damning. Perhaps most importantly, this is necessary. It is the artist’s responsibility to expose the hidden, speak the unspoken, shine a light in the dark. How I wish this was idle fantasy. Bravo, Scott Sickles. And may we learn before it is too late.

TESSERACT dramatizes every parent’s worst fear—their child going missing—and places it in a dystopian world that feels terrifyingly close. Sickles’ complex, human characters navigate their Kafkaesque gauntlet in ways alternately realistic and expressionistic, calling to mind the best of Sarah Ruhl. Time goes elastic, stretching and compressing, folding in on itself, but never slowing the propulsive energy of the narrative.

TESSERACT is not only a harrowing family drama—it’s an urgent call to action. Trans children are in danger in America, right now, in this moment. Scott Sickles has written a play that sounds the alarm.

In “Tesseract,” Scott Sickles picks up themes from his Second World Trilogy, particularly about a dystopian divided America. This time, the dangers are more stark, if that’s possible. The extensive research that went into this work serves to heighten the fear that this is indeed what the future holds. This is a play that must be read and seen so that hopefully enough people will recognize the threat posed by the far right and not allow “Tesseract” to be our future.

With "Tesseract," Scott Sickles proves one again that he is a master at channeling his "rage at the present and ... fears for the future" into powerful works of art. As in "The Second World Trilogy," he creates a dystopian world in which an extreme "Christian" nationalism has achieved absolute power and threatens the very existence of anyone they hate. Here the target is a trans child alone and vulnerable and, given the forces at work in our own society, his fate at the hands of true believers is all too credible. The play is a harrowing but essential experience.

In 1935, Sinclair Lewis wrote "It Can't Happen Here" about the takeover of the United States by a home-grown Fascist regime. Scott Sickles gives us a contemporary take on the idea as seen through the lens of a same-sex couple with a trans son who is lost in their frantic escape and they spend years searching for him. It is intensely personal yet we don't know the names of anyone, which makes it universal -- and harrowing -- because it can happen here, and the tesseract -- the wrinkle in time -- could be at this moment.