Jennifer and Bob sit outside on a summer night. It’s quiet and pleasant. Soon, there’s a noise offstage, and then footsteps. It’s their new neighbors, John and Pony, who banged into the garbage can, uh, while they were listening to Jennifer and Bob. But politeness prevails, and it turns out that the new couple has the same surname as the longtime residents. They’re all named Jones. We're seeing The Realistic Joneses, by Will Eno.
But this isn’t Lucy and Ricky and Fred and Ethel. It isn’t even Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. It’s apparent from the start that all these folks are hanging on the edge in various ways. Conversation bolts off from the expected to give us more story and/or to lead us into the land of the puzzled. It’s all close to absurdist.
Of the four, Jennifer, Laurie McConnell, seems the closest to normal, whatever that means in such a neighborhood. She’s a bookkeeper but is taking some time off because her husband Bob played by her real-life husband Alan Knoll, has been diagnosed with a rare degenerative neurological disease. (Note: The Harriman-Leavey syndrome they refer to here doesn’t really exist.) It’s causing some memory problems, and whether from the disease process itself or the overwhelming knowledge that he has a fatal illness, seems to be at the root of Bob’s habit of suddenly speaking harshly to his wife.
Pony – her father, Pony remarks at one point, thought up her name – is not just a garden variety neurotic with her insecurity and neediness. Her line of thought is frequently, almost brilliantly, illogical, bouncing like a tennis ball out of the lines and into an unsuspecting spectator’s face. She’s Kelly Hummert, the artistic director of Rebel and Misfits Productions, the presenting group. Her husband John is the strangest one of the group, and Isaiah Di Lorenzo leans into the role, leaping and crawling across the stage, ignoring boundaries of personal space, tact and good sense.
The story line is linear, short vignettes interspersed with blackouts, full of crackling dialogue but not leading to a tidy ending. It’s all typical of author Will Eno, whose work we’ve seen in St. Louis with shows like Thom Pain (based on nothing) and Title and Deed. Ed Coffield directed, using his actors pretty much spot on. McConnell and Knoll are smooth and believable in their first roles playing a married couple, letting the threads of normalcy fray and fall away in shreds of varying sizes. Hummert’s Pony knows she’s fragile but pushes herself anyway, sometimes almost trembling with the intensity of her feelings. Does Di Lorenzo’s John choose her because she’s so vulnerable? Watch his face for micro-expressions as his predatory instincts come up for air and are shoved down. At least they are some of the time. A warped-reality set from Peter and Margery Spack fits right in, with Jon Ontiveros’ lights and Ellie Schwetye’s sound. Coffield conducts this band of Misfits with considerable style.
Not your usual evening of theatre.
The Realistic Joneses
through August 12
Rebel and Misfits Productions
The JCC Blackbox
2 Millstone Campus Drive, Creve Coeur
314-534-1111 (Metrotix)