The Manhattan Theater Club's new drama takes place in the library of Eureka Day Elementary School, located in Berkeley, California and is attended by many well-to-do liberals. The colors are bright, the chairs are cheerfully plastic and neat signs separate the shelves devoted to “social justice” and “fiction.” However, if you stare at Todd Rosenthal's live set, that's where you suspect the visual pun is going on. What fills the eye? Countless books. What Eureka dayThe subject? The spines. Those moved by the winds of “revival” and those focused on personal certainty. Back bending, active bending, or strengthening, many lumbar will be tested for stress here. Jonathan Spector's play, about vaccine politics unraveling on the school board, is a great Reading Time that fails miserably for everyone.
The farce of hypocritical liberals is nothing new on Broadway; see old hits like God of Destruction or recent fares such as Thanksgiving Game for the drama actors taking off the KN95 mask of humanity, so to speak, to reveal the curved lip of contempt. Unlike those earlier titles, Spector gives his characters personality and complexity. But is it enough to make us care? After November, the idea that a retired professional from California was speaking for the nation was tragically rejected. Recent events have both enhanced or diminished this brilliant comedy. From the first scene's argument about which nationality categories should be included in the drop-down menu (“transracial adoptee”?!), we've known these types: coastal dignitaries who dismiss “holding” and “other” with a straight face. As the story goes on, Spector throws in other twists that give his PC caricatures more depth: the intense pain, the real tragedy of the parents. Anyway Eureka day had its New York premiere five years ago Off Broadway, the search for the perfect union in our age of ignorance continues. Today, post-Covid and pre-Trump II, audiences can watch this 2018 scenario almost with anticipation.
Let me introduce the board. The first is Don (Bill Irwin), the principal who tries to consider all ideas. Not to kill my “backbone” pride from above, but one may remember Irwin's bend Mr. Noodles Sesame Street. Like that shaky chap, Don giggles with an unpleasant annoyance, loosening his grip to agree. Suzanne (Jessica Hecht) has included all of her children in Eureka Day, and reigns supreme as a lady dragon with good marks. Über-Karen Suzanne takes black lesbian Carina (Amber Grey) only pays for her child's education—a little violence that comes back to bite her. Rich and smart tech bro Eli (Thomas Middleditch) and shy single mom Meiko (Chelsea Yakura-Kurta) fill the board—oh, while still dating. What goes on: Eli and his wife agree to a free marriage. What could go wrong? Umbumu. Meiko's daughter passes the virus on to Eli's son during “play day,” and the outbreak quickly shuts down the school.
Instead of containing the disease in a rational and effective way, the state of emergency divides society between pro- and anti-vaxxer. It turns out that a significant number of Eureka Day parents don't trust Big Pharma, the crunchy granola bar they passionately defend during a “Community Activated Chat” that marks the show's comedic high point. As Don and the board lead a Facebook Live town hall about approving student immunizations, a similar dialogue unfolds on the social media site, where we see parental cynicism and growing hostility expressed on set.
As a playwright, Spector has a strategy to spare: He paints each character with the unreserved eye of a satirist, leavened with a sudden flash of sympathy. On Eureka Day, Don says, “We Don't Turn Our Children into Thugs,” and he includes the board in that promise. Still, you might start to think that anti-vaxxer Suzanne is the heavy hitter, but Spector subverts those expectations with a blood-curdling monologue that the magnificent Hecht delivers with his witty, unflinching honesty. The entire ensemble is top-notch, tightly directed by director Anna D. Shapiro in a thrilling situation of management and moral crisis. Eventually, a compromise is reached, and the community heals—but not without a sacrificial lamb. I left the Friedman Theater both excited and disturbed: If a collection of smart and well-behaved citizens devolves into chaos, what hope does a nation of uneducated yahoos have? No virus spreads as fast as stupid.
Eureka day | 1 hour 40 minutes. There is no rest. | Samuel L. Friedman Theater | 261 W. 47th Street | 212-239-6200 | Buy Tickets Here
