Anyone who’s endured being stuck at a seemingly endless dinner party with people you couldn’t care less about will find much to relate to in Epiphany. Brian Watkins’ play riffs on James Joyce’s The Dead and features allusions to Samuel Beckett and other literary sources, so you can feel proudly smart while you’re watching it. But this half-baked meditation on (among other things) the need for human connections and whether or not rituals can still provide comfort in a post-modern era wears its intellectual pretensions too heavily on its sleeve. When filmmaker Luis Bunuel attempted something similar with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, he at least had the courtesy to make the proceedings fun and sexy.
The play, previously seen in 2019 at Galway’s Druid Theatre, is set on the titular Christian holiday during a gathering hosted by the sixtysomething, high-strung Morkan (Marylouise Burke) at her country home during a snowstorm. The evening’s main draw is the promised arrival of Morkan’s nephew Gabriel, a famous author who has promised to share his thoughts in a prepared speech. As one guest puts it, “We’re all gonna have one giant star fuck.”
Eagerly anticipating his arrival are the heavy-drinking, klutzy Freddy (C.J. Wilson), couples Kelly (Heather Burns) and Charlie (Francois Battiste) and Sam (Omar Metwally) and Taylor (David Ryan Smith), Morkan’s sad sack friend Ames (Jonathan Hadary), plus Loren (Colby Minifie), a young woman helping Morkan with the hosting duties.
It isn’t too much of a spoiler to reveal that Gabriel, like Godot, never arrives. His stand-in is his partner, the exotic Aran (Carmen Zilles), who explains that he has been afflicted with severe depression. She intended to read his speech for him, but she fell in the snow and the pages were ruined.
Although the guests are disappointed, the party goes on anyway, with goose, sumptuous deserts, and plenty of alcohol on the menu. But things don’t go quite as Morkan planned, since nobody bothered to read the attachments to her emailed invitation and aren’t prepared to sing songs, recite poetry or dance as she had hoped.
Mostly, they talk, blathering on about various philosophical issues even while stealing furtive glances at the boxes containing their precious cell phones that have been put there at Morkan’s insistence. The playwright attempts to provide some comic relief via such things as Freddy raving about the glories of the upstairs toilet and Ames somehow managing to get a large kitchen knife stuck in his arm.
None of it makes much of an impression. The play seems to take place in real time, but it drags on so slowly that when one of the guests announces, “We’ve been here for five hours,” you can easily believe it. The lights frequently sputter, signifying in all too obvious fashion that something is seriously awry. And indeed there is, with a late plot revelation aiming for tragedy but merely feeling tacked-on.
Watkins, the creator of the Amazon Prime Video series Outer Range, strains for both profundity and mysticism, but merely delivers the sort of pale intellectual musings that would prove much more interesting in a state of inebriation.
As usual, the Lincoln Center Theater production is impeccable, with sterling performances by the impressive ensemble (although I prefer Marylouise Burke’s helium-infused voice and quirky mannerisms in smaller doses) and impeccable production values. Veteran set designer John Lee Beatty has outdone himself (no mean feat) with his gorgeous set, so warmly lit by Isabella Byrd that you can barely resist the urge to venture to the stage and make yourself at home. But then, of course, you’d have to pretend to be interested in what the other people were saying.
As her guests finally depart, Morkan says to them, “Thank you all so much for coming. I’m sorry none of it made sense.” As far as apologies go, it’s too little, too late.
Epiphany opened June 23, 2022, at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater and runs through July 24. Tickets and information: lct.org
