Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Jonathan Spector’s EUREKA DAY arrives on Broadway more relevant and pointed than when it first premiered

• By drediman
• December 28, 2024
• No Comments

For my final performance of 2024, I chose to attend Manhattan Theatre Club’s Broadway mounting of Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre. The play has had a fascinating road to the Great White Way, originally premiering in 2018 at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley, California. A year later, it made its East Coast debut at Off-Broadway’s Walkerspace — that beloved downtown venue, formerly the home of Soho Rep, now shuttered — courtesy of the folks over at Colt Coeur. In light of the pandemic and the increasing polarization in American society, the play, now more relevant than ever, makes its optimally-timed appearance on the Main Stem as MTC’s fall offering.

Set at a private elementary school in Northern California, the play tells the story of the escalating squabbles within the fictitious school’s board, which is especially exacerbated when a breakout of the measles occurs at the school. Suffice to say, things come to a head between the board members — who are on both sides of the pro-/anti-vaccination divide — when it comes to responding to the fraught situation. Together with Leslye Headland (author of Cult of Love, which is also currently on Broadway), Spector is another astute theatrical voice — both of their plays have their respective fingers firmly on the pulse of contemporary America — who is making their well-deserved Broadway playwriting debut. What sets Eureka Day apart is how it slyly operates as both an honest, deeply human parable, as well as a ferociously observant comedy of manners. Indeed, Eureka Day’s depiction of the breakdown of congeniality and cooperation amongst a group of differently-minded people is inscrutably charted, and the play ends with a punchline that’s both at once hilarious and terrifying (no spoilers here!).

Anna D. Shapiro has directed a pointed, pitch-perfect production that playfully captures the work’s specifity, as well as its function as a lightly-veiled microcosm for larger things at play (a scene between the board and a bevy of the school’s parents on Zoom is particularly skillfully wrought). The company of five — six, really, but no spoilers here — has been ideally-cast, starting with the great Bill Irwin as the board’s chairman. The Tony-winner wryly navigates the board’s precariously tenuous situation, capturing its delicacy with the keen awareness of a tight-rope walker. As the play’s most apparently philosophically opposed board members, Jessica Hecht and Amber Grey — both veteran stage actresses of note — bring bite and and convincing humanity to their performances.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

EUREKA DAY
Broadway, Play
Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through February 2