Review: THE JANEIAD at The Old Globe

In “The Janeiad,” playwright Anna Ziegler blends myth, memory, and modern grief into a lyrical meditation on loss and the fragile myths we build to survive it. Directed by Maggie Burrows, this world premiere play at The Old Globe draws its inspiration from Homer’s Odyssey. It trades epic battles for quiet battles of emotional endurance and contemplation on the stories we tell ourselves.

Jane (Michaela Watkins), a Harvard-educated Brooklyn mom, has just sent her husband, Gabe (Ryan Vasquez), off to work one bright September morning in 2001. Her book club pick is The Odyssey, an odd and slightly pretentious choice, she admits, when suddenly Penelope (Nadine Malouf), the famously faithful wife of Odysseus, appears in her living room. Moments later, the phone rings. Gabe calls from one of the Twin Towers. Then the line goes out, Gabe is never found, and Jane’s life becomes an echo of Penelope’s, caught in a kind of mythic purgatory.

Watkins brings a pragmatic stoicism to Jane; she’s rational, a completionist who devours stories and finishes series, so it makes a sort of sense to her to wait to get the closure of this story that real life did not provide. It gives her life some order even as time slips away.

Malouf, on the other hand, is a shapeshifter, slipping in and out of Penelope’s identity with stunning ease. With the swish of her scarf or the raise of an eyebrow, she transforms into Jane’s therapist, sister, housekeeper, and even her rabbi. These shifts inject much-needed movement and levity into the play’s structure, and Malouf’s range and timing are a highlight throughout.

Ryan Vasquez, meanwhile, plays both the Gabe Jane remembers and the one she invents; tender, teasing, incomplete. His scenes feel like ripples in a memory, fading even as Jane tries to hold on to them.

Is Penelope a guide, a comfort, or a symptom? Ziegler’s script cleverly plays with the question: is Jane holding on to Penelope’s example as a beacon, or as a delusion? While others grieve and move forward, Jane waits for Gabe, for closure, for a story that makes sense.

 Or is Jane more parallel to Odysseus, making her own long, spiraling journey through grief? Which would make Penelope a dangerous kind of siren, offering an alluring, comforting alternative to the truth that Gabe is truly gone.

The production design subtly evokes the epic framework. Tim Mackabee’s set features a circular wood floor inscribed with Greek keys, reminiscent of both a ship’s deck and an ancient stage. Lap Chi Chu’s lighting and David Israel Reynoso’s costumes support the dreamlike tone, as does a soundscape filled with NPR time-stamps marking the passage of twenty long years.

Ziegler’s language is poetic and often poignant, and moments linger with you after the lights have come up.  This is not quite a 9/11 story, though it is a key to the story's foundation.  It’s a story of loss and how grief reorders time, identity, and one's sense of meaning. It’s about how we wait to recognize ourselves and our lives again after a trauma.

In the end, Jane takes the lesson from the fictional Penelope of the book: you can weave your own story, but only if you take the loom back into your own hands.

How To Get Tickets

“The Janeiad” is playing through July 13th at The Old Globe.  For ticket and showtime information, go to www.theoldglobe.org