Octet

Eight people sit in a circle in a church basement and try to say out loud what the internet has done to them. That is the premise of Dave Malloy’s Octet, and it is enough. The score is a cappella from the first note to the last, eight voices and nothing behind them.

Malloy also wrote Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, which came with a band, a supper club, and pierogis for the audience. This one has a folding chair and a lyric sheet. Some of the eight are regulars at the meeting and one is not, and watching the newcomer figure out the rules is most of the first half. Nothing else on Portland’s 2027 calendar sounds like it.