Review: THE JANEIAD at Old Globe Theatre

With apologies to Tom Petty, Abraham Lincoln (allegedly) and whichever scribe from Lamentations penned the line “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,” no, good things do not necessarily come to those who wait, and agreed, the waiting isn’t just the hardest part, it can also be outright torture. Thus learneth Jane, a young wife and mother of two whose husband goes off to work and never comes home on an infamously fateful day in September.  Helping with that lesson is Penelope of Greek mythology who steps out of the pages of Homer’s THE ODYSSEY and into Jane’s subconscious to give Jane some counsel in the finer points of biding one’s time for a very long time. The play is Anna Ziegler’s THE JANEIAD, a quietly gripping meditation on fidelity and the nature of grief in its world premiere at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre.

Inspired by a real-life widow of the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York who dreamt of a play about what a woman would experience if her husband returned after 20 years, Ziegler has written a story that is about September 11, certainly, but in a way that looks within. In the 100-minute, decades-spanning duration we spend with this woman who feels so very recognizable, Ziegler, director Maggie Burrows and actors Nadine Malouf, Ryan Vasquez and Michaela Watkins leave us affected, contemplative and more than a little bit heartbroken.

Which are not necessarily the feelings that Malouf’s restless and aggressive Penelope is looking to inspire when she turns up in Jane’s apartment with views on the practice of being abandoned by a disappeared man.  Penelope, as the story goes, stuck it out for 20 years waiting for Odysseus to return from the wars, fending off suitors, stitching and unravelling her weaving, ultimately being rewarded for her faith and patience. Or was she? As dreamt up by Jane – an English teacher who was reading THE ODYSSEY when the world went crazy, Penelope is equal measures a voice of tough love sympathy and of liberation. Now with thousands of years of hindsight, she’s more than willing to make any comparable situation all about her. Working a darkly comic streak and several accents, Malouf also morphs into a series of friends, moms, counselors and assorted women who Jane encounters as the years unfold.

The help these women offer is appreciated; the advice hit and miss. Jane is working things through even as she publicly repeatedly insists to the world, “I’m waiting for Gabe.” That’s when she interacts with the world, which isn’t so frequent. Tim Mackabee’s set includes a comfortable chair that almost seems to take root in the Brooklyn apartment where Jane waits.   

Meanwhile, a recurring Morning Edition broadcast time-stamps the days and the years, September 12, 2001…2002…2016…2021. Anniversaries come and go, Jane and Gabe’s twin sons are getting older, and the Brooklyn apartment Jane shared with her husband doesn’t change. Replacing a photo of Jane and Gabe with one of her grown up sons feels disloyal.

On September 11, Jane was on the phone with her husband (Vasquez), whose office was in one of the towers. Not yet fully aware of what was going on, she told him to get the hell out of there. The line crackled and then nothing.

As difficult it must be – even a quarter century later - to write an impactful play about the events of September 11, THE JANEIAD gets it right by not overreaching its goals. The notion that women are accustomed to biding their time, whether in service of men or otherwise, carries some critical heft. Thanks to Watkins’s quietly nuanced work here, we’re with Jane every painful step of the way and through every cringe-filled encounter she has to endure. Jane is fated either to break free of Penelope entirely or to her embody her spirit. In the performances of Malouf and Watkins, we see that these two women – while part of a legacy – are not alike.

Playing a character that might have otherwise have been a martyr, Vasquez is strong as well. The play offers a scene between Jane and Gabe - not the aforementioned phone call – that is seriously heart-rending. Waiting can be, as I’ve said, a rough ride, but it sure beats having to say goodbye.

A note: there have been several stagings of Margaret Atwood’s THE PENELOPIAD that offer a very different take on Mrs. Odysseus. Needless to say, this ain’t that.

THE JANEIAD plays through July 13 at The Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park.