The third scene of the new Broadway production of “Eureka Day” could be titled “The Way We Discourse Now. As written by the playwright Jonathan Spector, the scene reliably has audiences laughing so loudly that the actors are drowned out.
The situation is this: It is 2018. The principal of the progressive private school Eureka Day in Berkeley, Calif., and the four members of its executive committee must inform the other parents that a student has mumps, and therefore by law any students who have not been vaccinated must stay home to avoid exposure. (Vaccine skepticism was not uncommon in this milieu, particularly pre-pandemic.)
At the meeting, which is being held remotely, Don speaks while sitting in front of a laptop in the school library, addressing parents on a Zoom-like video app. The executive committee members are behind him. The rest of the school’s parents weigh in on a chat-like function. Their messages – 144 of them – are projected above the actors for the audience to read.
The online conversation quickly descends into vicious attacks. “Typical behavior from the Executive Committee of FASCISM.” “Sorry, chiropractors are not doctors.” “That’s child abuse!!”
The scroll of their projected comments (“Were you dropped on your head as a child?”) is the exposed id of a community that professes perfect consideration of differing opinions but is actually a hotbed of intolerance, wrote Jesse Green, chief theater critic for The New York Times.
Each comment is assigned to one of dozens of parents – each with their own names and avatars – and cued to specific moments in the script. The audience’s attention is invariably drawn to the projected comments. The result is something quite unusual – and uproariously funny.
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