The third scene in the new Broadway production of “Eureka Dei” could be titled “How We Talk Now.” As written by playwright Jonathan Spector, this scene causes the audience to laugh so hard that the actors can't be heard.
The situation is as follows. The year is 2018. The principal of Eureka Day, a progressive private school in Berkeley, California, and four members of its executive committee must notify other parents that their student has mumps, and therefore By law, all infected students will be banned. If you are not vaccinated, you must stay home to avoid infection. (Vaccine skepticism was not uncommon in this environment, especially before the pandemic.)
School leaders, an optimistic group dedicated to diversity and inclusion, held town hall-style meetings “to see how we can come together as a community and exchange ideas around difficult issues.” Principal Don says that it is being held.
During the conference, which will be held remotely, Dong will sit in front of a laptop in the school library and address parents via a video app like Zoom. Members of the executive committee are behind him. The rest of the school's parents participate in chat-like features. Their messages (144 of them) are projected onto the actors for the audience to read.
Online conversations can quickly turn into malicious attacks. “Typical behavior of a fascist executive committee.” “Sorry, but chiropractors are not doctors.” “That's child abuse!!!”
“Their projected scrolls of comments ('Did you have them dropped on your head as a child?') are a part of a community that professes to fully consider differing opinions, but is in fact a breeding ground for intolerance.” “It's a real reveal,” says chief theater critic Jesse Green. In a review of the play in the New York Times, he wrote:
Each comment is assigned to one of dozens of parents, each with a unique name and avatar to indicate a specific moment in the script. Viewers' attention is always focused on the comments that are shown. The result is something very unusual and a big fuss.
Several artists involved in the Manhattan Theater Club's current production at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater and the original production at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater spoke in interviews. Aurora Theater Company is excited to announce how this scene will be staged, what will work, and how the panicked Don (reading the comments) will say, “In this format, we all have the best intentions for this conversation.'' I feel like I'm not encouraging people to express themselves,” he explained the reason for his observation. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.
“Eureka Day” was commissioned by Aurora Theater Company and premiered in Berkeley, California in 2018.
josh costello (Artistic Director, Aurora Theater Company) This was before the coronavirus. Measles outbreaks occurred because parents did not vaccinate their children.
bill irwin (Don, Principal) The setting of this play is, in a sense, about Berkeley, California. I used to do pantomime at Sproul Plaza. I know Berkeley and love him for his flaws but also for his deep integrity. And there's a certain kind of — I'm afraid to sound condescending, but cold-eyed — spirit that this play is a portrait of.
Jonathan Spector (playwright) When I was researching this play, I spent a lot of time deep inside internet message boards where people discuss vaccines. And they are so mean. Much of the way we live our lives is certainly online when it comes to such matters, so not bringing that element into the play is a very important part of how we interact. I felt it would be ignored.
Irwin These characters love the concept of community and consensus. One of my favorite things about the show these days is that in scene two you're anticipating excitement about how great scene three is going to be. This is pride before falling.
The production's stage manager clicks on each chat message to post each chat message at the exact moment the script signals the lines on stage. Messages are displayed above the actors, facing the audience, and also on a laptop screen that can only be read by the actor playing Don.
Specter I can't help it if it's that actor. [playing Don] I don't have it [the messages] Because in front of him, sometimes he becomes a surrogate for the audience – his reaction to what is happening is a big part of the scene.
nicky hunter (Associate Artistic Director, Manhattan Theater Club) For the first few screenings, we had to make sure we were properly amplifying Bill Irwin's voice. The laughter was so loud backstage that I couldn't hear any signals.
Charles M. Turner III (Production Stage Manager) We call the show-off stage a right. There is a speaker that provides a feed through a stage microphone. But the laughs outweigh it all. So sometimes I follow the script and confirm, “Yes, Bill said those words,” or wait for a gesture from Bill. In a beautiful way, it will never be the same again. I think it's probably scary for a director to hear that.
Anna D. Shapiro (Director) What you're trying to do is get the audience to relax into what they can't hear, make them understand that they shouldn't hear certain things, and make them believe that they're the only ones who got certain other things. It is to make it possible. , did you hear that? The goal is to make it fun, relatable, and true at the same time.
turner Usually, Bill would come out of the scene and give me a salute or a thumbs up, or look at each other funny, or be like, “Wow, that audience.'' There's always a little check-in. We check on the scene almost every day.
When new actors and staff come to a play, they are surprised at how the audience reacts to the scene.
Specter In that first performance, the comments kept flowing throughout the scene with basically no breaks, but there was so much laughter on stage that you couldn't hear anything.
costello He had to go back and rewrite and adjust the timing of each thing to appear so that the lines that really mattered could still be heard. He incorporated a pause. He didn't make it very interesting. It gave me a better flow and allowed me to get some important lines in so I could understand what was going on.
Jessica Hecht (Suzanne, parent of an executive committee member) No one laughed during the rehearsal. And I said: “The audience will feel like I'm making such a flimsy argument,'' Jonathan said. They'll look at the Zoom feed and laugh. 'And I kept thinking, 'God, he's kind of full of himself!' Cut to the first preview, and they're laughing and screaming.
The four actors playing the parents act out entire scenes with dialogue, knowing that the audience is barely listening or paying much attention.
“Eureka Day” script it is important The actors aren't holding back the laughs that come from the livestream comments. This scene is constructed in a way that allows many lines to be lost.
Hecht I have to stay in my lane. I am not an agent in the field. bill and chuck [the production stage manager] If you practice your dancing well, you will leave little to chance. I like to compare it to certain TV shows that have a very high level of comedy. You wonder if there's a great spirit of improvisation among the actors. And the answer is, “No, it’s written, directed and acted within an inch of each other.” That life.
Irwin Sometimes you need to think of yourself as the foreground. This is an important part of the story, but it's an almost pantomime scene of people talking and thinking that what they're saying is the most important thing.
Theories abound among those who produce scenes about what exactly makes them tick.
Specter In the early days of COVID-19, I was constantly receiving screenshots from friends on my child's school Zoom with text messages like, “Oh my god, I'm joining in on your fun, too.”
Irwin Jonathan's sharp writing. He's like Berkeley's Chekhov. Our illusions about where we sit and how important we are in the world.
Specter There's a limit to how uncomfortable we can actually be when we're in the same room as another human being. But when you go online, that just goes away.
Shapiro This scene makes people aware of our experiences over the past few years on every level and makes them feel seen. It was just a horror show with no etiquette. And whether or not that plays out on a larger scale, which it does, it plays out on a national scale as well. This is what happens when an essentially homogeneous group of people realizes that they do not share all their beliefs and ideas.
Specter [The audience’s following the chat] It probably says an unfortunate amount about how our attention interacts with technology. But that's also the thematic idea of this scene. This means that thoughtful discussions and collaborative endeavors that could be productive in real life become impossible when published online.
costello In some ways, this play feels more real than it did before the pandemic. When the right decided there was political capital in denying the science of vaccination, it changed that dynamic. This play is still about people on the left, but at the end of the day, this play is not about vaccination. The play is about, “How do you get along with people if you can't agree on the facts?”
Irwin I'm very wary – I almost use that word. dislike I want to talk about this scene because of its delicate mystery.
