Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Will Eno depicts the totality of life in THE UNDERLYING CHRIS, the playwright’s most conventional work to date

• By drediman
• December 6, 2019
• No Comments

Hannah Cabell and Howard Overshown in Second Stage Theater’s production of “The Underlying Chris” by Will Eno at the Tony Kiser Theater. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Currently running Off-Broadway at the Tony Kiser Theater is Second Stage Theater’s production of The Underlying Chris by Will Eno. In many ways, Mr. Eno is American playwriting’s contemporary response to Samuel Beckett. Over the years, Mr. Eno has written plays – among them Thom Pain (based on nothing) (a Pulitzer Prize Finalist), The Realistic Joneses, and Wakey Wakey – which have demonstrated an acute interest in exploring the essence, texture, and meaning of human existence, often using avant-garde approaches to theater and language to convey his musings.

His latest, The Underlying Chris, just may very well be Mr. Eno’s most conventional play to date, with the exception of one defiant theatrical device. Through a parade of succinct scenes, the play chronicles the life – literally from cradle to grave – of a fairly unremarkable person (the titular Chris). The thing is, in each scene, Chris is played by a different actor, irregardless of race or gender. Although this fascinating “gimmick” highlights the universality of the human experience, it inevitably blurs the character’s cumulative identity. But maybe that’s the point. Like the play Mary Jane Marlow – Tracy Letts’ quietly riveting portrait of a woman at different stages of her life (similarly, a different actress is used at each stage) – Mr. Eno also seems to be interested in The Underlying Chris in investigating the slippery nature of human identity.

Although I miss some of the daring unpredictability of some of Mr. Eno’s earlier existential works, the Second Stage production of The Underlying Chris nonetheless succeeds in burrowing itself in one’s head, thanks largely to director Kenny Leon’s confident but sensitive staging. In a slow-burning but deliberate ninety minutes, Mr. Leon’s production somehow manages to give the arc – or lack thereof – of a life in totality. The relatively large cast is comprised of a bevy of some very good and accomplished New York stage actors, each of whom gets a shot at imparting their own spin on Chris.

RECOMMENDED

THE UNDERLYING CHRIS
Off-Broadway, Play
Second Stage Theater / Tony Kiser Theater
1 hour, 30 minutes (without an intermission)
Through December 15