Warning: Prepare to be triggered into fits of laughter by Eureka Day, an extremely funny and ultimately thoughtful new comedy.
A topical story regarding an outbreak of mumps at a progressive private school, Eureka Day satirizes ultra-woke parents and educators as they fight over vaccinations. Nobody, for all of their professed sensitivities, listens to anybody else.
Opening on Thursday in its East Coast premiere, this smart comedy by Jonathan Spector—a writer new to me—is likely to appear on many critical top-ten lists come next spring.
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★★★★ review here.]
Commissioned and produced last year by Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley, California, Eureka Day receives a bright staging here by Colt Coeur. The modest troupe scores quite a coup by snagging the comedy past the likes of Lincoln Center Theater or Playwrights Horizons, whose typical subscribers would love the penetrating humor that pervades Eureka Day.
Set in a pretty classroom, nicely designed by John McDermott, four parents convene with Don (Thomas Jay Ryan), the earnest head of Eureka Day School, in their first executive meeting of the academic year. A nice newcomer, Carina (Elizabeth Carter) is introduced to Suzanne (Tina Benko), an assertive founder of the school; Meiko (K.K.Moggie), a somewhat anxious single working mom; and Eli (Brian Wiles), a stay-at-home dad and tech millionaire. The latter two evidently are enjoying a quiet affair.
“There’s a lot of neurodiversity here,” declares Suzanne. The school proudly cultivates the kind of student body who cheers when the other team scores at soccer matches. Disposables like plastic plates are not permitted, nor are gender-specific pronouns. Issues regarding native people and colonialism in a performance of Peter Pan were solved by setting the show in outer space.
With everyone shown to be so deferential to each other, the story turns ironically funny when an outbreak of the mumps among the students ignites an increasingly nasty argument about vaccination.
The comedy explodes into outrageously amusing proportions during a live Facebook town hall-type session with other parents. As the committee members struggle to explain the situation, they are gradually overwhelmed by a pinging cascade of parental commentary, whose emoji-riddled remarks scrolling down upon the screen rapidly degenerate into rants.
Going beyond its appeal as an entertaining satire of our current culture wars, the comedy’s second act turns serious when a student suffers damaging complications. The humor remains plentiful even as the playwright provides some astute, equitable observations regarding an individual’s rights versus the larger community good.
Adrienne Campbell-Holt, the artistic director of Colt Coeur, delivers a well-paced and very well acted production. The actors ably intimate the deeper nature of the characters that grounds their humor in believability. Tina Benko’s portrait of a self-assured soul whose manner grows brittle under pressure and Thomas Jay Ryan’s drolly stricken expressions as a kindly educator harried by controversy are among the show’s finer points, but everyone provides ace performances. Sunny music, apt clothes, and clever projections neatly support the proceedings.
Not incidentally, the Brooklyn-based Colt Coeur company is presenting Eureka Day at Walkerspace, a 65-seat space in Tribeca, where Soho Rep usually performs. So tickets likely are hard to get for this production’s limited run, but don’t be surprised should the comedy stick around. I’ve got no inside scoop, but it sure seems to me that a show this smart deserves a longer life somewhere in town.
Eureka Day opened August 29, 2019, at Walkerspace and runs through September 21. Tickets and information: coltcoeur.org
