Review: Pretty Perfect Lives Trapped in the Social Media Matrix

I suspect historians will look back on our early 21st-century relationship to smartphones with the same gentle disdain now reserved for smokers in the mid-20th century. How pathetic, they’ll think as they read accounts of people rolling out of bed and instinctively reaching for their phones. How naive, they’ll tut in response to our assumption that this behavior is not nearly as harmful as lighting up first thing in the morning.

The powerful current of addiction runs beneath Gage Tarlton’s Pretty Perfect Lives, a one-act drama that wraps its social critique in uncomfortably plausible science fiction. Now making its world premiere at the Flea Theater, it makes a convincing case that the machines won’t have to expend much effort herding us into the Matrix. In many ways, we’ve already corralled ourselves there.

At the center of this tale is influencer couple Tiffany (Elizabeth Lail) and Tucker (Zane Phillips). Beautiful, inspiring, and boasting over 5 million followers, they seem to be living the dream and scrupulously documenting every moment in gorgeous lighting. But there are still some things Tucker is figuring out about himself, which is how an alluring third character, Jesse (Nic Ashe), enters the picture. Why let an important moment of self-discovery go to waste when it offers the potential so much viral content? If that doesn’t work out, there are always new identities for these exhibitionists to unbox and try on before a voracious audience of digital voyeurs.

Once we think we’ve figured out the rules of Pretty Perfect Lives, Tarlton demolishes everything with the casual violence of a thumb swiping up to the next video. It should prompt the burning question, who are these people, really? It should make us hungry for more. Unfortunately, the languidly paced later scenes circle the drain (this is likely a result of overwriting left unchecked by director Gabi Carrubba). It doesn’t so much leave us dazzled as exhausted.

That’s too bad because Tarlton is dealing with the real and pressing issue of an overabundance of choice (or, at least, the illusion of choice). As markets expand to encompass the whole world, it is natural to suspect there is always a better deal out there and you are missing out (see Grindr’s torso meat market for a particularly vivid illustration of this). Why make a decision when shopping is so stimulating — like a video game?

Perhaps the most terrifying image with which Tarlton confronts his audience is the spectacle of uncommonly attractive people ignoring one another in favor of their screens. If they can’t unplug and enjoy their natural gifts, what hope is there for the rest of us?

With his striking good looks and dyed platinum blond hair, Phillips could be a cover model for a series of Targaryen-themed paperback romance novels — and yet we feel Tucker’s genuine insecurity when facing the slings and arrows of Internet trolls. It’s not just a business for him; it’s his life.

Not so for Lail’s Tiffany, a steamroller clad in Lululemon, who embodies the volatile collision of meritocratic striving and FOMO that powers so much of the Internet economy. She secretly films a sensitive conversation with Tucker because she thinks his unvarnished vulnerability will make great content. When Tucker expresses hurt at her betrayal, her barely masked incredulity lets us know that this is someone who views the word “no” not as an endpoint, but the start of negotiations.

And then there’s Ashe’s Jesse, whose initial confidence conceals an even deeper sense of doubt, which fully emerges in a painful later scene. Jesse is not actually a unicorn third or a homo homewrecker, but a disposable bit player in Tiffany and Tucker’s A-plot — a terrible thing for anyone to realize about themselves.

While Carrubba has led all three actors to solid and even memorable performances, she has not been able to solve the fundamental problem of a sluggish pace that makes us feel like we’re watching this cutting-edge Internet drama on dial-up. This is despite a sleekly versatile set by Josh Oberlander, which provides an ideal surface for Zack Lobel’s hilarious video projections, which further expand this universe of digital make-believe. Oberlander’s perfectly selected costumes offer strong first impressions of each character, which adds to our disorientation as Tarlton scrambles the narrative. Emma Lea Hasselbach’s skeleton-rumbling sound design should keep us on the edge of our seats, but it is not enough to overcome a shaggy script that takes far too long to get to the point.

Even if the execution isn’t flawless, Pretty Perfect Lives is the kind of ambitious, imaginative theater we need as we stand on the cusp of the metaverse and consider taking the plunge.