The lights in Warner Main were dim with scarlet beams of color reflecting off the eager faces of the audience. The usually large, open space was condensed in the center as three rows of seats bordered each side of a narrow red carpet to set the intimate stage for Darwinii: The Comeuppance of Man, which ran last Friday to Sunday.

At 8 p.m. sharp, the audience was suddenly enveloped in darkness. Heavy steps boomed through the room. These were not the steps of regular, everyday shoes: They were the defiant strides of boots — cowboy boots, to be exact. The blinding brightness of the sudden switch of the lights revealed Cristobal, our heroic lead played by Brett Keyser (as was every character in the production), the persistent Tierra del Fuego native whose story the audience eagerly followed for the next hour and a half. We watched him transition from poor boy on the street, to poor boy on the battlefield, to poor boy on a soul-searching journey. After discovering the “Tree of Life” hidden in his grandmother’s Bible, Cristobal’s curiosity sparks him to unearth his own past with his unique blue eyes. Through the help of patched-up books and pieced-together figures, the illiterate Cristobal seeks out Darwin expert Janice Green for help confirming his groundbreaking discovery: He is the bastard great-great-great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin.

The twists and turns of this extensively eclectic tale kept the audience interested. From running gags such as his catchphrase-like “Picture me naked” to his mission to swab-sample an elderly Darwin descendent set to a tango, not a single audience member could resist laughing. The plot smoothly shifts from hilarity to seriousness, revealing the underlying themes of the comedy. “I did not appear out of nothing!” Cristobal shouts in frustration and defiance, sharing his desperate attempts at finding not only the origin of his species, but the origin of himself.

Keyser breathed life into Cristobal, not to mention every character he portrayed. As director of the production company Nightjar Apothecary and co-creator of the piece alongside Glen Berger, Keyser plays many roles in real life as well. College sophomore Leila Goldstein said, “It was amazing [enough] to sustain the whole performance, even if it was just him. The topic could have been heavy and not as artistic as he made it out to be.”

A single recorded voice accompanies Cristobal throughout the piece, guiding him to the last moments of the show. It is Janice, however, who finally tells the audience the meaning behind Cristobal’s endless search: “Hours are precious. Minutes are precious. Cup them in your hands; those are the droplets of your life.”