Absurdism seems to have gone out of style, and more’s the pity. It seems like ages since we had a fresh dose of Christopher Durang – and now, sadly, his aphasia diagnosis means that we most likely won’t be getting more. Not that long ago, we had Albee (in his more antic mode), Beckett, Ionesco … As of late, that rich font seems to have run dry.
Enter Noah Diaz with You Will Get Sick, a script which predated the pandemic (he was developing it as a grad student at Yale when the world shut down) but eerily embodies the atmosphere of a mysterious plague descending from out of the blue.
We find ourselves, the program informs us, in “the Big City, a time before cell phones.” The street numbers sound familiar, but the avenues have gone wonky. Linda Lavin, playing a character identified only as “Actor 2,” notes that she and a “project partner” (mysteriously missing) are preparing a report on “Gentrification And How It’s Effected [sic] The Neighborhoods Between Seventy-First and Forty-Third, Just Between The Park With The Pack of Wild Dogs And That Bodega With All The Cats In It.” Slight spoiler hint: Birds may actually pose more of a threat. Sound designer Lee Kinney gets credit for the ungodly screeches that start off the play; composer Daniel Kluger, the eerie organ music that ensues, and more.
Actor 2 assumes another task on top of that report, and it sounds dicey. On her rounds, she spotted a flyer offering $40 – scratch that, $20 – just for calling a number and listening. She follows up – with reservations (“Is this a sex thing? I don’t wanna listen to you jerk off”). She and Actor 1 (Daniel K. Isaac, an intelligent/wary face familiar from the Showtime series Billions) come to terms and embark on a peculiar, increasingly intimate relationship.
Actor 1 turns out to be a shut-in experiencing the early pangs of a mysterious condition. Providing 1’s narrative from an offstage mike is an unseen figure, Actor 5 (Dario Ladani Sanchez). The distancing effect is somewhat annoying at first but one acclimates; plus the device pays off big time at the denouement.
In keeping with modern mores, or at least the givens of this fictional futuristic world, the imbalanced relationship between 1 and 2 starts out strictly transactional: 2 demands cash, for instance, for extending such simple kindnesses as offering 1 a cool towel. However, the pair’s lives become increasingly intertwined, as 1’s body begins literally coming apart at the seams. (I’ll leave it to you to imagine the special effects effected by Skylar Fox, credited for “Magic & Illusions.”).
No matter how dire 1’s condition, he can’t bring himself to utter the S-word, even to his sister, Actor 3 (Marinda Anderson, crisply solicitous and all business). There’s a bit of a dark comedy routine involving a waiter who can’t stop sobbing (Nate Miller, capably shouldering a couple of roles), and then – faster than you can say quid pro quo – 2 pressures 1 into attending her evening acting class.
The holy absurdity of dramatic pedagogy deserves an absurdist subcategory all its own. It has proved comic gold for centuries, and this sampling is 24-karat. Anderson, acting now as sage rather than sister, embodies a sing-songy, self-appointed guru of an instructor, and Lavin, as a community-theatre aspirant, proves an apple-polisher extraordinaire. She has a major career goal in mind – too marvelous to reveal.
Does this sound like your idea of fun? I laughed pretty much nonstop, the exception being a few “aww” moments which always stopped short of maudlin. The play left me pondering such weighty mysteries as the way shame likes to glom onto illness – as if, in assuming responsibility after the fact, we can continue to delude ourselves that, however weakened, we remain in control.
Under Sam Pinkleton’s tight direction, this loopy lockdown-era play is simultaneously sobering and side-splitting.
You Will Get Sick opened November 6, 2022, at the Laura Pels Theatre and runs through December 11. Tickets and information: roundabouttheatre.org
