The Washington Post - 13.03.2020

the washington post

.

friday, march 13, 2020

eZ

22

on stage

photos by roberta alves/spooky action theater

A now-wry, n ow-sober riff on marriage and the

awareness of death, featuring two sometimes

awkward and secretive small-town couples who

share a surname, “Realistic Joneses” is receiving

a Washington area premiere at spooky Action

Theater. Under the direction of Gillian Drake,

Brandon McCoy (“Veep”) and other actors inter-

pret a play that, eno says, acknowledges “the way

we can sort of carry our own mortality around

like it’s a big, dirty secret. And in wanting to hide

that from other people, we end up accidentally

hiding all sorts of other parts of ourselves.”

“Realistic Joneses” works in a more tradi-

tional mode than some of eno’s scripts. “Thom

Pain (based on nothing)”— the piece that shot

him to U.s. fame in 2005, after he’d already

see Joneses on 23

BY CELIA WREN

‘T

he Realistic Joneses” i s the only play

by Will eno to have reached Broad-

way, notwithstanding his work on

the misleadingly titled “skittles

Commercial: The Broadway Musical.” some

might see his scant presence on the Great

White Way as testifying to the limited appeal o f

his stylistically d aring, plot-light, intermittent-

ly dark and deadpan scripts, which have been

widely performed in less glitzy arenas. But eno

doesn’t yearn for popularity, in any case. “I am

trying to write things with a purpose and

meaning and actionable point to them,” he

says. “so I don’t get too hung up on whether

somebody likes something or not.”

Keeping up with the daring Will Eno

The playwright’s ‘Realistic Joneses’ may not have mass appeal, and he’s perfectly fine with that

If you go

the Realistic Joneses

spooky action theater, Universalist

national Memorial church,

1810 16th st. nW. 202-248-0301.

spookyaction.com.

Dates: through april 5.

Prices: $20-$40.

ToP: From left, Brandon

McCoy, Amanda Forstrom, Lisa

M. Hodsoll and Todd scofield in

“The Realistic Joneses” at

spooky Action Theater. LeFT:

Playwright Will eno.

UPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws