“Eureka Day,” a comedy by Jonathan Spector that wades into the controversy on vaccine mandates, has solely grow to be extra explosively topical since its 2018 premiere at Aurora Theatre Firm, in Berkeley, Calif.
The play, which is having its Los Angeles premiere at Pasadena Playhouse, looks like it may have been commissioned to skewer this harmful, benighted and fully mortifying anti-science second. However Spector wrote the work earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic unleashed our political demons and made silly nice once more.
“Eureka Day” takes its title from the fictional personal elementary college in Berkeley that’s the setting for what’s each a satire of anti-vaccine tradition and a comedy of woke manners. Held in a determinedly cheerful Bay Space classroom (brightly summoned with all the required social justice touches by set designer Wilson Chin), the play unfolds as a sequence of conferences of the varsity’s govt committee.
Don (Rick Holmes), the pinnacle of faculty, is ostensibly in cost, although his duck-and-cover technique for coping with battle has a means of protracting issues. 4 dad and mom, one a newcomer nonetheless acclimating to the varsity’s strenuously progressive guidelines, are a part of the chief mind belief.
The primary dialogue of the brand new college 12 months is comparatively innocuous although no much less testing for being so. Eli (Nate Corddry), a stay-at-home dad who made a fortune at Fb, has proposed including “Transracial Adoptee” to a drop-down menu on an admissions kind already burgeoning with id subcategories.
Suzanne (Mia Barron), a mom who has despatched so many kids by Eureka Day that she has a proprietary angle in regards to the place, doesn’t assume this extra class is critical. She’s delicate — self-consciously so — to Eli’s good intentions, however she persuades the group that no modifications are crucial presently.
“Persuades” is perhaps a euphemism. Suzanne has an iron will that she thinly veils with a solicitous smile.
One of many quirks of the chief committee is that it operates by consensus slightly than a majority vote. This could result in some “very long meetings,” Suzanne informs Carina (Cherise Boothe), the brand new Black lesbian mother who lately moved from Maryland.
Suzanne claims to need everybody to really feel “empowered,” although her controlling temperament pokes by her welcoming facade. Meiko (Camille Chen), who knits throughout conferences with a delicate air of annoyance, has to loudly ask Suzanne to please cease talking on her behalf.
Cherise Boothe in “Eureka Day” at Pasadena Playhouse.
(Jeff Lorch)
These blind spots, a normal ingredient of comedian characters, are notably obtrusive in Suzanne’s case. When Carina tells her that she didn’t homeschool her son for kindergarten however despatched him to public college, Suzanne is mildly horrified. She additionally makes the idea that Carina isn’t a “full pay” household.
There’s even one thing passive-aggressive about Suzanne’s present of concern for all viewpoints, a trait that turns into all of the extra conspicuous after a disaster erupts on the college. A mumps outbreak forces Eureka Day to quickly shut its doorways.
Don informs the chief committee that the well being division has issued a letter stipulating what dad and mom should do for his or her little one to return to high school. The topic isn’t open for debate, however Suzanne is uneasy about how this letter is being “framed.”
She’s an advocate of parental alternative on the subject of vaccines, not trusting the specialists who’ve decided that solely kids who’re vaccinated can return to high school when there’s a threat of an infection. She believes vaccines stand in the way in which of pure herd immunity.
Mia Barron, left, Rick Holmes, Cherise Boothe, and Camille Chen in “Eureka Day” at Pasadena Playhouse.
(Jeff Lorch)
Meiko is much less vociferous in her anti-vaccine stance than Suzanne, however she has her personal skepticism about trendy drugs and doesn’t need to be instructed what to do. When her daughter develops mumps, it turns into an emergency for Eli, who’s been having an affair with Meiko. The 2 prepare their assignations round playdates, and their youngsters had been lately involved.
Eli, who’s married however in an advanced open relationship scenario along with his more and more resentful spouse, would slightly not have to decide on sides within the vaccine mandate debate. However when his son will get sick after spending time with Meiko’s unvaccinated daughter, he finds he can now not keep on the fence.
The well-programmed comedy hilariously runs its course within the management vacuum created by the varsity’s over-accommodating tradition. Don is so apprehensive about seeming to favor one parental faction over one other that he permits Suzanne to grow to be the dominant voice within the room.
The manufacturing, directed by Teddy Bergman, has a area day with the woke-run-amok ethos of Eureka Day, the place youngsters on the college cheer the opposite group’s targets at soccer video games. However Bergman’s strategy is extra schematic than Anna D. Shapiro’s Tony-winning Broadway revival.
Maybe the urgency of the second requires a clearer ethical stand, however the comedy has misplaced some nuance. On Broadway, Jessica Hecht made Suzanne appear completely oblivious to her personal rage. She actually believed that she was looking for consensus, tolerant of all views so long as they didn’t impinge on her beliefs, the origins of that are poignantly associated later within the play.
The fury of Barron’s Suzanne is far more on the floor. The humor is extra direct — Barron might be very humorous — however the debate is much less trenchant. Bergman’s manufacturing, marred by blasts of jarring people music between scene transitions, is slightly too on the nostril.
Boothe’s Carina, by far the strongest efficiency within the forged, is our rational surrogate within the play — a father or mother attempting to slot in with out betraying her intelligence or little one’s welfare. I appreciated the way in which Holmes lets us come to our personal conclusions about Don’s go-along-to-get-along fashion of operating the ship.
Meiko is woefully underwritten, and Chen’s efficiency, whereas amusing when Meiko erupts, typically appears disconnected. Corddry refuses to play a tech business cliché, however Eli, a bland creep, comes off as unnecessarily obscure.
Bergman has hassle finding that candy spot between jokey exaggeration and multidimensional authenticity. Comedy trades in sorts, however the forged may have benefited from extra fine-tuning.
Maybe that’s why the funniest scene within the play entails the stay chat portion of a digital assembly that’s organized for Eureka Day dad and mom alarmed in regards to the quarantine scenario. Avatars sq. off towards each other in a vaccine debate free-for-all that places the deceive the varsity’s “community of respect” motto with uncensored savagery punctuated by missile-like emoticons.
“Eureka Day” will make you giggle, however how a lot this manufacturing will make you assume is an open query.
‘Eureka Day’
The place: Pasadena Playhouse, S. 39 South El Molino Ave., Pasadena
When: 8 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays, 7 p.m. Thursdays, 2 and eight p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. (Examine for exceptions)
Tickets: Begin at $40
Contact: (626) 356-7529 or pasadenaplayhouse.org
Operating time: 1 hour, 35 minutes (no intermission)
