The Realistic Joneses
1 hour and 30 minutes
The Realistic Joneses - 2014 Broadway History , Info & More
Lyceum Theatre
(Covent Garden/Charing Cross) Wellington Street, just off Strand London
Will Eno's new play The Realistic Joneses comes to Broadway starring Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winner; Academy Award and Tony Award-nominee Toni Collette ("Hostages," "United States of Tara," The Sixth Sense, The Wild Party), Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award-winner Michael C. Hall ("Dexter," Chicago), Tony Award-winner Tracy Letts (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; August: Osage County; "Homeland"), and Academy Award-winner and Gold Globe-nominee Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinny; The Wrestler; Salome). The production is directed by Obie Award-winner Sam Gold, who was recently represented by Fun Home at the Public Theater.
This new American play comes to Broadway after a critically acclaimed run at the Yale Repertory Theatre in 2012. The Realistic Joneses is produced by Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, Jam Theatricals, Stacey Mindich, and Susan Gallin/Mary Lu Roffe.
Further details about this production will be announced at a later date.
In The Realistic Joneses, we meet Bob and Jennifer and their new neighbors John and Pony, two suburban couples who have more in common than their identical homes and their shared last names. As their relationships begin to irrevocably intertwine, the Joneses must decide between their idyllic fantasies and their imperfect realities. This contemporary comedy explores how our joys and sorrows - and how we choose to face them - can come to define our lives.
The Realistic Joneses - 2014 - Broadway Cast
FEATURED REVIEWS FOR The Realistic Joneses
'The Realistic Joneses' review: Michael C. Hall and Toni Collette lead oddly delightful comedy
9 / 10
In The Realistic Joneses, the world is familiar and, then again, very scary. It's also weird and cruel and profound in all sorts of unexpected places -- as sad as life but a whole lot funnier. Provocative playwright Will Eno, whose dry and odd work has tended to cause the theatrical equivalent of fistfights Off-Broadway, has come to Broadway with a macabre and melancholy yet strangely delightful comedy...At its most basic, the play can be reduced to a drama about caregivers and the different ways people deal with illness and mortality. But much like work by Edward Albee and Samuel Beckett, Eno's closest forbearers in existential absurdity, there's a challenge in keeping up with these Joneses. As John says, 'This was fun -- I mean, not fun, but some other word.' Indeed.
Theater Review: The Realistic Joneses Are All Talk
7 / 10
Which pair of Joneses, if either, is the 'realistic' one is not made clear, or even addressed, though a certain merging of identities in the Albee manner makes the question moot. This is not altogether unappealing. The jokes are funny, and when their content supports character development, as sometimes randomly happens, they even land quite nicely. The growing tension between Bob and John - a matter of peacock territoriality and something darker, it would seem - naturally finds expression in such conversational gambits...Eno brings a decided intellectual panache to the genre (as opposed to, say, Lisa D'Amour's more emotional Detroit) but I'm not sure that's an improvement if the aim is to produce meaning; it's like producing water by squeezing a hamperful of damp clothes. You might be able to do it, but is it worth the effort? So even though The Realistic Joneses is smart and witty and beautifully produced, it's not exactly enjoyable. As Groucho Marx, who knew from paraprosdokians, once said, 'I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.
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The Realistic Joneses History
Other Productions of The Realistic Joneses
| 2014 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
The Realistic Joneses - 2014 Broadway Awards and Nominations
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Michael C. Hall |
| 2014 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Tracy Letts |
| 2014 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play | The Realistic Joneses |
| 2014 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding New Broadway Play | The Realistic Joneses |
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