Review - Middletown: Our Postmodern Town

Our Postmodern Town might be a more descriptive title for Will Eno's Middletown, a play that coats the Thornton Wilder standard of normal American life as it pertains to the cycle of life and death with a whitewash of Samuel Beckett absurdity. And if even half of the play's two hours contained the vivacity of the first few minutes, where David Garrison rhythmically recites an all-inclusive list describing any possible type of audience member who might be in attendance - concluding with his pointing out the fire exits - a trip to Middletown might prove a worthy excursion.

"Middletown was built on the ruins of other older Middletowns, and, before them, a town called Middentown, which was named for being between two other places, both unknown and now incidentally gone," explains the town librarian. Georgia Engel, who has made a career out of uttering such straight-faced convolutions with sweet airiness, is a natural for the role. But it soon becomes apparent that in Middletown, quirky is the norm and if newcomer Mrs. Swanson (Heather Burns) wants to fit in she'd better develop some eccentricities fast.

Middletown already boasts a smug police officer with a sadistic streak (Michael Park), an anti-social mechanic (James McMenamin), a friendly, but depressed handyman (Linus Roache) who befriends Swanson and a former astronaut (Garrison) who likes to wax poetic on how small the world is compared with the vastness of the universe. ("Are you getting mystical on us, Greg?" asks ground control.)

Unfortunately, Eno doesn't take us anywhere beyond a tiresome series of scenes punctuated by dialogue loaded with lines that seem clipped from one-panel cartoons ("I get these awful panic attacks. They're actually how I stay in shape."). Only Garrison and Engel are able to escape the sluggishness of Ken Rus Schmoll's direction.

The first act is capped with a scene showing audience members discussing the play during intermission. One notes that, "everything, in a way, is still going on. Time's going by, in the town, at the library, in outer space, here - all over. In a fictional way, of course, but, at the same time, like, non-fictionally, too." And that's about as perceptive as Middletown gets.

Photo of Georgia Engel, James McMenamin and Michael Park by Carol Rosegg.