Taylor Mac, that unpredictable rascal. This towering figure in today’s avant garde puts together a five-act, five-hour epic fantasia (The Lily’s Revenge) and subsequently wins a MacArthur “genius grant.” A 24-hour performance piece, A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, is staged in whole or in part at multiple venues, and becomes a 2017 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Two years later, the stage of Broadway’s Booth is littered with the bloody remains of Shakespeare’s goriest tragedy, in Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus.
So what extravaganza do we get next, as a world premiere at the Huntington?: Joy and Pandemic, a tight one-set, two-act naturalistic drama whose look, language, and themes wouldn’t so much as startle Henrik Ibsen should he show up in Boston back from the dead. I use the great Norwegian in this context because we’re told that Mac’s having won 2020’s coveted, biennial International Ibsen Award prompted a deep dive into Ibsenite dramaturgy. The upshot is a haunting reverie on mothers and daughters, on plague and personality, on art and anguish unlike anything you’ve lately seen, I promise you.
Philadelphia, 1918. Our main character is Joy (Stacy Fischer), and joy is her main characteristic. A poised, self-possessed “New Woman,” she embraces a mission to exalt the human spirit through painting. Aided by Pilly (Ella Dershowitz), her simple, gawky teenage daughter by a late first husband, she will today hold an open house in their storefront art school so that the parents of the young pupils can marvel at their handiwork. What larks! An overwhelming joie de vivre is picked up in scenic designer Arnulfo Maldonado’s gloriously messy environment of paints and brushes and construction paper.
Yet larkishness isn’t in the air. Second husband Bradford (a studly yet nervous Ryan Winkles) seems to be pulling away from his roles as spouse and head of instruction. His dowager mother (Marceline Hugot, delightfully brusque) disapproves of just about everything, starting with the oversized chimes at the entrance (a running gag that gets progressively funnier). And then there’s Mrs. Melanie Plachard (Breezy Leigh), mother of Joy’s most wayward and most gifted student, intent on both sneaking an advance look at her baby’s work and confronting this white lady along mysterious yet intensely felt lines.
Gradually, the source of tension is located in the so-called “Spanish flu” that has just begun to lay the population low. Melanie knows that as a Christian Scientist, Joy is blithely unconcerned as to how mankind should react to physical mishap. First politely, then with greater intensity, the women begin to spar, with Joy citing Biblical references to justify her unshakeable belief in the Higher Power that will sustain. “I’ve never been so desperate to prove a point I must memorize passages,” Melanie crisply retorts.
At this point the audience is all alert. Because isn’t science vs. faith the precise point of contention that has had us all at loggerheads for the recent, sorry past? Or more precisely, faith in science vs. faith in something else. And if this day’s wine-and-cheese reception won’t qualify as a superspreader event, the giant civic parade assembling at this very moment on this very street sure as hell will. The terror that accompanies every onstage cough is immediately relatable; Taylor Mac’s two-way lens allows us to perceive two plagues a century apart, in novel and increasingly gripping ways.
This isn’t to say that the ideological battles are clear-cut. A restless ambiguity runs through the arguments and their subtext, as if the author hadn’t quite worked out his points yet. Still, interest never falters, thanks to the precise, committed character work from Fischer and Leigh, and director Loretta Greco’s careful manipulation of serious and comic elements. In a post-intermission shift into 1952, the 34-year legacy of disease and fear is slowly revealed, and the two leading women truly come into their own. Leigh takes on even more moral authority in a different role, while Fischer – in a switcheroo reminiscent of Grey Gardens, The Musical – assumes the role of Pilly in middle age. Dershowitz’s bumbling eagerness to please in the first half, going all the way to pratfall in places, has been delightful and seemingly inimitable. But Fischer imitates it, all right, taking on the mannerisms with easy abandon. A poignant tour de force, all around. (Kudos to Sarita Fellows’ costumes, each silhouette perfectly attuned to character and period.)
If a few scenes meander, and if Pilly’s second act-opening phone call goes on far too long for the value it brings, the text shines in offering tenderness and anger in equal measure, reflecting our general, post-COVID societal ambivalence. Both the choice of play, and Greco’s handling of same, bode extremely well for her tenure as new Huntington artistic director. Equally notable is Taylor Mac’s eagerness to investigate atypical forms and wrap his arms around them. If you esteem this preeminent artist of international stature, of course you must pay attention to that artist’s most personal and challenging work to date. And if you haven’t as yet been captivated by the magic of Taylor Mac, Joy and Pandemic might just turn the trick.
Joy and Pandemic opened May 3, 2023, at the Huntington Theatre Company (Boston) and runs through May 21. Tickets and information: huntingtontheatre.org
