Keeping up with these ‘Joneses’ isn’t easy

STAR-POWERED ‘JONESES’: Tracy Letts & Marisa Tomei in ‘The Realistic Joneses.’ Photo: Joan Marcus

By David NouNou

They say that the theatre has to constantly evolve in order to exist. It can take you to dizzying heights or it can go to abysmal nothingness. In the evolution of nothingness, I can only begin with the seemingly nothingness from my generation. There was Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story, among others. The 70s brought us Harold Pinter; hell, why pick one? Pick any of his plays. And for the millennials, we have Will Eno, who has mastered the art of writing about nothingness as wide as space permits, and by space I mean infinity. For no one can string sentences that just go in circles and end nowhere as well as he can.

The Realistic Joneses, consists of two couples, both of whom have the last name of Jones (what are the odds of that?), residing in some rural, rustic foresty area. There are Bob (Tracy Letts) and Jennifer (Toni Collette) and John (Michael C. Hall) and Pony (Marisa Tomei);  both husbands seem to be affected with some rare or the same brain disease, seems to be lethal but then with Eno you never know and both wives handle the situation differently. Jennifer deals with it realistically and tries to deal and understand the situation, while Pony lives in denial. The foursome all get acquainted one night while Bob and Jennifer are sitting on their porch, and John and Pony drop in on them unexpectedly, and the gabfest begins.

The play progresses in short vignettes where the couples get to know each other better as individuals and as couples. Nothing is said directly, but abstractly and they don’t come trippingly off the tongue. Lines are bandied around and as an audience member one has to sort them out to make some sort of semblance of them. In the end there is no resolution. It’s like being on a treadmill that goes nowhere, However, on a treadmill one at least hopes to lose a couple of ounces.

To add to the puzzlement here is what attracted big names like Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts and Marisa Tomei to such a project? In all fairness, they all give fine, detached performances, which is a necessity in any Will Eno play. Normally I am not the type of critic that likes to take notes, I prefer to absorb. However, there was one fantastic line that I had to write down so I wouldn’t forget it. It is said by Mr. Letts’ character Bob, “There is so much crap and pain in the world.”  And there is plenty of it at the Lyceum Theatre.

BIG TALENTS, CONFUSING SHOW: Toni Collette & Michael C. Hall in ‘The Realistic Joneses.’ Photo: Joan Marcus

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published April 10, 2014
Reviewed at press performance on April 9, 2014