Victims avoid ‘The Safe Way’

SAN FRANCISCO — In horror movies, people often don’t act like they want to survive. There’s always a certain character who, for whatever vapid reason, needs to leave the “safe” place or take it upon himself to investigate an undeniably creepy sound that will most certainly leave him bloody and dismembered.

Damien Chacona, co-creator of the horror-comedy “The Safe Way,” was particularly struck by the inane behavior of characters in Stephen King’s “The Mist.”

Following a violent storm, a small community comes under attack from creatures lurking in a thick and ominous mist. Survivors seek refuge in a supermarket where they proceed to battle one another and also attempt to take on the creatures that threaten their existence.

What Chacona found so disconcerting and what eventually led to the inspiration for “The Safe Way” — the play opens this weekend at the Dark Room Theater in San Francisco — was the food choices of those trapped in the grocery store.

“They started opening cans of soup to eat, processed food, very well-sealed foods,” Chacona says.  “That’ll be good for months, if not years. If you’re going to do it right, you’ve got to start with the perishable foods first. Then move on to the frozen foods. It may be mushy and disgusting at room temperature, but a couple weeks down the road it’s probably not going to be spoiled. At that point, you can move on to canned foods and chips.”

“The Safe Way,” as the name implies, follows a group of people trapped inside the confines of a grocery store as monsters roam the Earth.

Chacona and fellow co-creator Andy Wenger use the play as a vehicle to ask such questions as: How would you react if your fellow survivors wanted to risk their lives for the sake of entertainment? What about heroism? Where do you draw the line when you believe your cause is just?

So, how exactly would our society fare in such a predicament?

“As far as our society goes, especially our little pocket of society of San Francisco, I think many of us are so far removed from the actual survival instinct,” Chacona says.

 “We don’t know how to do the basic agriculture stuff like farm our own foods – most of us have never even been hunting. I think if it ever comes down to the wire in our lifetime when we have pull together and fend for ourselves, a lot of people are going to be lost in that situation.”

That said, can folks expect to glean any survival tips from “The Safe Way” should monsters one day indeed walk the Earth?

“Of course it’s a comedy, says Chacona. “But, I think it does say some pretty important things about not taking yourself too seriously and being able to be flexible when the rules change.”

IF YOU GO

The Safe Way

Where: Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission St., San Francisco

When: 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; closes Nov. 22

Tickets: $15

Contact: (415) 401-7987, www.darkroomsf.com