Trudy hears voices. She's what folks used to call a "bag lady," back before the descriptor "homeless" gained traction, and we meet her at the corner of Walk and Don't Walk in New York City. She ascribes these voices to signals from "space chums," amorphous aliens who collect human experiences for further study. That's the device used by Jane Wagner, writer of The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, to cycle rapidly through seemingly discrete scenes, but it's also a great way of keeping us at a cerebral, dispassionate remove.
THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE, 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through Feb. 15, Harlequin Productions, 202 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia, $20-$31, 360.786.0151