Ned Averill-Snell as Arnold. Photo

From: Photo Flash: Casting Announced for Taylor Mac's HIR at Jobsite Theater

The title, HIR, (again, pronounced "here") refers to a genderqueer pronoun. "It's not simply a reference to the character of Max," says David M. Jenkins, "but a commentary on what it is all four of these characters (and Mac as a playwright) are trying to do with masculinity. Mac sets up a very traditional, very familiar-feeling kitchen-sink play - one that is positively hilarious -- and then spins it on its axis, or maybe better stated tries to burn it all down. The style is described as "absurd realism," but the emphasis here is on the real. Mac requires that any absurdity in the show be driven by the reality of the situation, only moving to an absurd level because of the extreme circumstances." In an interview with the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, where the show enjoyed a highly successful run after the New York engagement at Playwrights Horizons (and where Annie Baker's The Flick, produced earlier this year, also premiered), Taylor Mac says that he was highly inspired by Sam Shepard's groundbreaking Buried Child. "In addition to the Buried Child comparisons HIR has, in my estimation, taken its place alongside great American family dramas like Long Day's Journey into Night, The Little Foxes, A Raisin in the Sun, Death of a Salesman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Fences. It truly represents our day and age in ways audiences will continue to look back to for decades, if not centuries."