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Another ‘Oh, the Humanity’ review
By Lisa | November 29, 2007
From Associated Press:
“I would tell you more if I knew more,” says Marisa Tomei, playing a spokeswoman for Country Air.
The struggle to know more — and the realization that “to be mortal is not to know” — threads through each of the five short plays that make up Will Eno’s darkly funny “Oh, the Humanity and Other Exclamations” currently on view at the Flea Theater.
Tomei, in the piece entitled “Enter the Spokeswoman, Gently,” is speaking at a podium to a group of family members and loved ones after a plane crash in which there were no survivors. Dressed conservatively in a brown striped suit, she gamely tries to convey sympathy in Eno’s absurdist confessional style.
The cause of the accident hasn’t been determined (another instance of uncertainty), but she does say that the company is fairly certain that “gravity was a factor.” Tomei’s character realizes that it probably sounds silly to tell the group that “families of the deceased get a roundtrip ticket.” She goes on to urge them to take comfort in the fact that the plane was even able to fly and stay up for as long as it did — and that they’re there at all. “Officially,” she says, “we would like you to feel giddy.”
Academy Award winner Tomei is compelling in this role — by turns compassionate, pleading, and nervous — and she handles the elliptical text with aplomb.
She’s even stronger in the two-character “The Bully Composition” as the assistant to a photographer, winningly played by Brian Hutchison. They are recreating a historic photo from 1898 of American soldiers fighting in the Spanish-American War.
Hutchison and Tomei complement each other very well throughout the work. In “Ladies and Gentleman, the Rain,” they portray singles filming video dating testimonials. The platitudes usually spouted in this situation are filtered through Eno’s off-center world view, as they are in “Spokeswoman.” Hutchison, puppyish and hopeful, tells the camera that he’s “pretty good” at grocery shopping — part of his intensely honest appraisal of his attractive qualities. Tomei, disheveled and mournful, says that she’s “described as the girl next door by neighbors.” Both say they just want to be seen and heard, to have their humanity acknowledged in some way.
In “Oh, the Humanity,” the last piece, they are still trying, this time as a married couple attempting to take part in either a funeral or a christening — they can’t remember just what. They are stymied by many things, most notably that their car consists of only two folding chairs, as Hutchison points out. A third character, played by Drew Hildebrand, tries to make them see the beauty, the majesty of things.
Hutchison shines in the first selection, “Behold the Coach, in a Blazer, Uninsured,” as a coach giving what has to be the most existential press conference in history. We never learn the sport in question, but we do know that it was a losing season — “a building year” — but, on the bright side, “we sold some hot dogs, we got some sun, some fresh air.”
The production is expertly directed by the Flea’s artistic director, Jim Simpson. The stark set by Kyle Chepulis and casual costumes by Claudia Brown enhance the spare, precise prose of Eno, best known for the Pulitzer Prize nominated “Thom Pain (based on nothing).”
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Topics: Articles & Reviews, Theatre |