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Went and saw Middletown by Will Eno last night at Dobama. It was a strange show. First, given the nature of the play (life in a small town) and Second, the varied cast of characters and events (being somewhat eccentric, etc), and Finally, the epic sweep of the thematic content (life, death, love, the universe, our place in it, etc.) there are obvious parallels to Our Town by Thorton Wilder.

The play is engaging, for the most part, and the first act is filled with a strangeness that is difficult to describe: things, events, characters, and ideas (statements) are juxtaposed with other things, events, characters, and ideas and the clashing of the two creates a dissonance that is abrupt and sometimes very comic. The statements from characters and language used is equally abrupt and strange and it is clear that Eno is playing as much with words and how they mean and just the raw sounds of words, as he’s playing with big ideas. If you, dear reader, are like me, occasionally you’ll say a word and the word will sound so strange in your ears that you’ll repeat it again and again until the word itself loses meaning and just becomes this guttural sound that is disconnected entirely from anything. Some of this is at play in Middletown. This notion of the strangeness of words and their association with concrete things in the world is one of the arguments, often, for learning to speak a second language or even a third, because learning another language is learning to see the world in a different way, for instance, the Spanish language associates all nouns with gender. So the moon is “la luna” a female object. The sun “el sol” is a male object. And virtually everything has this gendered nature. This causes one, I think, to experience the world differently. For an example of the dissonance and clashing I mentioned above, early in the play, I’ll go with the librarian example (having been one myself and being always interested in the stereotypes of the profession), one of the “main characters” Mary (Carly Germany) goes into the library to request a library card. This request is met positively by the Librarian (Laura Starnik) who says, “Good for you dear. A lot of people figure, ‘Why bother? I’m just going to die, anyway.’”

What makes for strangeness and good fun does not, however, make for good “deep” connections with characters. This sort of strangeness and light-hearted non-committal to characters in any meaningful way results in a very surfacy attachment and interest in them, and, as with may Eno plays, there is a tendency to just sit and think and try and keep up with his use of language and the strangeness of his ideas. I saw Thom Pain at Dobama several years back, and it was the same thing. Except there you have an exceptionally intimate encounter with one man who is baring his soul, or trying anyway, and periodically covering it over with neurotic defense mechanisms to keep you away from his soul. It is a passive agressive experience of the highest order and equally fascinating to listen to and contemplate as fast as you can. What works well in Thom Pain, though, does not work as well in Middletown. With Middletown there genuinely feels, at times, as if there is an earnestness to the attempt to reveal something beautiful and terrible and deeply real about the human condition, and I would say that on a few occasions this succeeds. But for the most part it does not, simply because there is so much of the Thom Pain cynicism and comic clashing happening. There are moving moments with the Police Officer (Jason Markouc) and the Mechanic (Fabio Polanco) when they reveal their inner demons and troubles to the Librarian–who has known them since they were little boys (again, small town angle); but most of it gets lost amidst the easy laughs and verbal gymnastics that are Eno’s trademark. Like his play [amazon_link id=”0816647313″ target=”_blank” ]Tragedy: a tragedy[/amazon_link], there is something smug about the sorrow, something removed and distant–sort of a “I know you’ll think this is moving, but I don’t, in fact, I’m more entertained by your thinking this is moving than in really moving you.” It’s like psychologist sitting behind a one-way mirror to observe the suffering and distress of another person, but not really empathizing with it or feeling it himself–perhaps even joking about it.

I do like Eno’s work as he is truly a remarkable thinker and his use of language is stunning; and Middletown is no exception. There were points in the play where I felt that longing and epic reach of Our Town–that sense of individual isolation, even in the midst of others–that makes Our Town so powerful. But, as Mike Geither and Chris Johnston noted, whom I went out with after the show, there is a deep earnest sincerity in Wilder and a genuine love of people and their weaknesses that comes through in Our Town that does not come through in Middletown. The only question is, what is Eno’s intent? Maybe he doesn’t want you to connect at all. Maybe he wants the audience, which the play engages frequently, to be removed–a la Brecht–to not identify with or emotionally connect with the characters. The only question that remains then, is “to what end”? Eno could be saying something about the disconnected nature of our modern society, compared with Wilder’s society. Given his outstanding thrashing and skewering of the local news media in Tragedy: a tragedy, that just might be the case.

The set for this play at Dobama was fantastic, so hats off to Laura Carlson. And the cast was fantastic for this production as well, including Robert Hawkes, Tom Woodward, Emily Demko, Mark Mayo (who was performing after surgery, no less), Maryann Elder and my former MNO classmate, Dianne Boduszek.

So, you are familiar with the saying “better late than never”? Well, here’s hoping that this is true. Over a year ago my wife and I took a trip south to Columbus to see a play by my friend and fellow playwright Michael Parsons. The play is 29 Bells, about which I wrote a blog entry when I had the opportunity to go and see a staged reading of the piece. The short point is that it is a marvelous play and it is one of those plays that has the sneaky habit of creeping back into your conscious mind periodically for what appears to be inexplicable reasons.

The reason that a play can take hold of you and constantly return your mind to it are impossible to tease out and identify; especially given that the reason will be different for each person who experiences it. For me, I think the reason the play holds my imagination and mind is that its center is on a family and the life of this family in the past. There is a profound sense of loss in this play and the true and hopeful glimmer for a recovery of some of what has passed–that is, a restoration. Parsons achieves both of these effects which have tremendous dramatic payoff for the audience member. The dark spiraling descent, cast against the all time perfect metaphor (a sinking ship), is, as one would expect: tense; but the relief that comes through hopeful emotional moments and through Parson’s natural humor, bring the audience out of the darkness at the end, yet keep the balance of emotions of the piece in place. For myself, I think of my family and Christmases past and households that were filled with people and light and humor and food and drinking and celebration. During my college years my dad’s mother passed and the center of one family blinked out. The center did not hold and the families dispersed. The light went out, and one side of the family descended into a darkness from which it has never recovered. More recently my other grandparents have passed and the same has happened. Relatives are older, families of their own, people are in different places, etc. That said, of course, now I have a family of my own and we have begun creating our own traditions and the holidays are filling again, and have been for several years, with light, and people, and humor and food and drinking and celebration. Aristotle new well that drama, like life itself, moves in rhythms and that these rhythms are meaningful: they lead us through the various emotional and intellectual events of our life. Parsons captures these very well in what is a sprawling story held tightly together.

I mention Aristotle because it is important in another way. Parsons is a more traditional playwright. That is to say, he writes plays with Aristotelian structures. Plays that are mostly naturalistic. He tends to have strong views on the subject and has admitted the challenges of not writing in this way. His concerns as expressed and his admitted challenges are somewhat surprising given that 29 Bells has some absolutely fantastic moments that show a sense of exploration beyond traditional structures. For instance, throughout the play are a variety of generic structures present: from the rapid fire dialog of the LA power lunch, to the ghost boy (Ricky Isbell) sitting at the ham radio, to the presence of a variety of media sources (radio, television, etc) in the highly dramatic ending to the first act, surreal moments–such as the names of the deceased tattooed on the back of the girlfriend (Natalie Jensen); there is love story, ghost story, family story, hollywood story, etc; and much of the work plays with time and challenges linearity. The list goes on. Parsons has very adeptly woven together a quilt of a variety of pieces of fabric that act as both independent pieces and both shine and reflect on each other–illuminating and deepening character and meaning.

The plot of 29 Bells is fairly straightforward, though thankfully the telling is not. Ian Carlyle (Jeremy Ryan Brown) is sent back to his hometown to write a screenplay about the Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in Lake Superior in 1975. It is the same lake on which Ian’s father Hal (Jeff Potts) disappeared (guilt over his not being on the Edmund Fitzgerald–as he should have been–taking its toll). Once in his hometown Ian’s past begins to surround him like the cold lake waters and soon Ian is treading memories and beating back emotions that he did not count on. His mother (Amy Anderson) and former/new girlfriend provide much of the prodding necessary to get Ian to throw off his LA facade and become the true person he should be–one who can accept the totality of who he is, including the events of his past. That is, to become a centered person.

29 Bells could still use a bit of thinning out, a fact of which I am certain that Parson’s is aware, as there are a lot of story lines competing for audience attention: a challenge that I myself face with my most recent play Patterns. Nevertheless, 29 Bells takes several stories which combined have almost epic sweep and manages the impressive feat of joining them together while director LB Rabby keeps the pace up and constantly driving forward. Especially nice is the full cast re-telling of the night the Edmund Fitzgerald went down that dramatically and energetically closes out the first act.