The apocalypse called the Permian extinction, aka the Great Dying, nearly vanquished the entire biosphere 251.4 million years ago. The planet didn't regain vitality for tens of millions of years - and no one knows what caused the event. But the real story is that evolution slipped through the bottleneck, albeit in a radically altered direction. We exist as the descendants of cosmological crash victims.

If that seems heady, wait until you get a load of playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's boom at Harlequin. It begins as a Craiglist "casual encounter" in a college science lab ("also an exhibit," the script mentions offhandedly). Jo answers Jules's invitation, which promises "sex to change the course of the world." She quickly realizes Jules has grander purposes, relevant to his passion for the hive-mind behavior of fish. (Nachtrieb studied fish in Panama, and has a degree in "Theater and Biology" from Brown.) Jules is a G-rated brainiac ill-suited to a casual fling with a coed, and Jo drops the F-bomb on her fifth line and never dials it back. Jules will be in a makeshift cast before romance develops.

To read Christian Carvajal's full review, click here.

boom

Through April 16, 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday
2 p.m. Sunday, $28-$31
Harlequin Productions, 202 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia
360.786.0151