"The Oregon Trail" computer-game was a staple of childhood in this state. For the Nostalgia-Factor alone, "The Oregon Trail" stage-play would be worth the price of admission for students of a certain era-quite possibly exactly my era-because Jane, the protagonist, mentions being in middle school in 1997. The fact that there are also some of the most true-to-life one-liners I've heard relating to my generation is an added bonus. "You chose Media Studies...which is nothing", booms an off-stage narrator, in reference to Jane's impractical major. That one hit close-to-home, but I laughed anyway. "The Oregon Trail" game comes to represent the pitfalls in her life's journey, and this device quickly becomes the more interesting of the two plots, the other being the members of Jane's in-game wagon-train. Though they do end-up playing a pivotal role near the end, a scene or two fewer would be welcome editing.
Still, for me it was the little things that made the play enjoyable, not only the tidbits of nostalgia, or the self-deprecating jabs at my generation, but also things you'd never have thought of had you not been reminded, like that no one can remember making it to the end of the game. (Not even me, and Your Crippled Correspondent was allowed to take his gargantuan Apple IIe home with him over summer-vacation.)
If you want to vividly relive a moment in time, see "The Oregon Trail." You will be transported.
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