The Apiary | 1hr 15mins. No intermission. | Second Stage Theatre’s Tony Kiser Theater | 305 West 43rd Street | 212-392-1818

Science fiction may be a natural fit for movies and TV, where budgets allow CGI world-building and eye-popping F/X, but the genre flourishes in humbler forms of storytelling. Caryl Churchill probed the existential horror behind cloning in A Number and Jordan Harrison walked the uncanny valley with aide-mémoire androids in Marjorie Prime. Where does The Apiary rank among futuristic stage work? In Kate Douglas’s dark farce set a persnickety 22 years from now, bee populations are shrinking (even more) due to climate change. A pair of technicians who run a synthetic apiary think they’ve found a solution. But it’s going to take a lot of human corpses. The scientific stakes are fairly high—Earth is, um, dying—but after 75 minutes of tonal wobble, you may flit from Second Stage Theatre with little to buzz about.

The Kate Whoriskey–directed production is part of Second Stage’s inaugural Next Stage Festival, which gives emerging playwrights an extra bump of prestige by opening in the institution’s........

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