On & Off Broadway

‘Informed Consent’

Reviewed by Elyse Trevers

Posted

If you could learn your future, would you want to know? In the insightful Off-Broadway play, Informed Consent, by Deborah Zoe Laufer, Jillian, a genetic anthropologist, takes a genome test to determine her odds of developing the same early onset Alzheimer's that killed her mother. Jillian is obsessed with the need for scientific truth, not acknowledging that everyone doesn't share her priorities. When she learns that she has a 100 percent chance of contracting the disease, she is anxious to test her young daughter, despite her writer-husband's protests.

Informed Consent
, based on an actual court case between one of the country's largest universities and a Native American tribe, creates a dialogue about racial and cultural identities. Despite Jillian’s mantra that “we are all cousins,” her views are ultimately shaken when she comes to study the genetics of a tribe that believes that it was created in the Grand Canyon. Fervent in their creation beliefs, they believe their blood is sacred, yet they are convinced by Jillian to give blood to find the cause of the diabetes that is decimating the tribe.

Unfortunately, there is no genetic connection to the diabetes, but Jillian takes liberties, using the blood to determine the tribal migratory paths. Although they signed the consent forms, the Native Americans really didn't understand the ramifications of the forms. All hell breaks loose when Jillian begins to write and lecture about their migration patterns, contradicting their creation myth. Myopic, Jillian seeks scientific truth and doesn’t understand their anger and hostility.


As Jillian, Tina Benko is suitably dispassionate and matter-of-fact, especially compared to her more soft-spoken husband (Pun Bandhu.) Despite her objectivity, which makes her seem aloof, she becomes a compassionate character. When Jillian seeks to bond with her daughter by taking her to a birthday party, she winds up talking with the other mothers about genome testing and convincing them to be tested.

Jillian is not the life of the party but she will make you think. Informed Consent raises thought-provoking questions about genetics, science, faith and beliefs. It is engrossing, intelligent and creative. Tempting as it may be, I don't think I'd want to know my future. I’d rather let it all unfold and be surprised.