NO need to shut off your cellphone before “#9”: The preshow announcement actually encourages you to tweet your way through the evening.
“You have to have an online presence,” insists one of the four young urbanites at the heart of this piece, about the cacophony of electronic communication.
“If you don’t, you don’t exist.”
As “#9” makes painfully clear, the Internet has basically redefined our lives. Faced with a hurricane, an unwanted pregnancy, the death of a child and more, these characters blog, tweet, text, Google, upload and download themselves to the point where they can barely feel anything at all.
Devised by the avant-garde troupe Waterwell, the company responsible for the acclaimed music theater piece “The/King/Operetta,” “#9” is an imaginative, freewheeling musical theater piece that only partially fulfills its ambitions. And while it will strike a familiar chord in anyone who’s ever agonized over his Facebook or dating profile, it too often sacrifices coherence for stylization.
For every clever touch, such as a shadow suddenly taking on a life of its own, there’s an obvious one, like an imaginary visit from Marshall McLuhan that’s not nearly as funny as the one in “Annie Hall.” The talented young performers — Hanna Cheek, Matt Dellapina, David Ryan Smith and Kevin Townley — work hard, especially the winsome Creek in her song-and-dance routines.
But “#9” ultimately resembles what it mocks: the shapeless din that passes for communication these days.
#9 59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th St.; 212-279-4200. Through June 28.