Imagine how sonically colorless a world without traditional music would be. Actually, not very, according to the “retro-utopia” environment of this show, created and originally produced by the Seattle-based company Collaborator. Though its residents inhabit a future drained to such grayness that it’s not even as cool as The Matrix, Foster (Sam Littlefield) wakes one morning to discover he’s been slipped a red pill that allows him to “hear too well.” Fortunately, Arial (Alexandra Fulton) has long been dancing to the beat of the, uh, plastic straw squeaking in and out of the fast-food cup lid, and they orchestrate all kinds of funk out of frogs croaking, birds chirping and rocks skipping. While the performers are, as they say in this show, “sufficient,” music director Mark Sparling and musician Miho Kajiwara deserve credit for making the show a marvel. Relying on sounds from such “found objects” as a hairbrush, a wooden spoon and a skillet cover (okay, and of course, the omnipresent MacBooks), they provide live sound effects for everything from tooth-brushing to factory machine-whirring, and turn it into music. Extropia optimistically believes in our innate need to create, and in our ability to scrounge something out of nothing when those Macs are taken away, though it is actually a protest against the yanking of public-arts funding. In that spirit, this production plans to perform pro bono in various L.A.-area schools. Night performances are followed by live acts such as On Blast, Bullied by Strings, The Naked and Cherry Boom Boom. King King, 6553 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; Sun., 8 p.m.; through April 18. (323) 960-7721.
Sundays, 8 p.m. Starts: March 14. Continues through April 25, 2010

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