Review: EUREKA DAY at Seattle Rep

Dear Readers, if you’ve ever been a part of a committee or administrative association you know how painful they can be.  With a clash of egos, agendas, and issues, committees and boards can be the lowest form of life.  But fortunately for us, they can also be a source for hilarious entertainment.  In recent years there’s been a spate of shows peeking into this particular level of hell.  And now playing at the Seattle Rep we get one of the better ones, the Tony Award winning “Eureka Day” which managed to bring us a major hot button topic at the same time we were laughing our butts off.

The committee at hand in Jonathan Spector’s play is the Executive Committee for the Eureka Day Private School a well-off grammar school in the Berkley area.  The committee seems to be a well-oiled and very PC machine.  First, there’s the very self-assured President Suzanne (Sara Hennessy) who’s been a part of the school for quite some time as she has had many children attending over the years.  There’s the lone Dad in the group, Eli (Quinn Mattfeld) and the single Mom Meiko (Ashley Song) who have their own little secret outside of the group.  The newbie Carina (Nemuna Ceesay) who is just trying to navigate these uncharted waters.  And the school Principal Don (Jonathan Slavin) who’s desperate to keep the meetings on track.  And all of them are overly invested in the goings on of the school as well as making sure no one’s feelings are hurt.  But when an outbreak of mumps hits the school, the question of vaccinations rears its controversial head, and all that politeness goes out the window.

Spector walks the fine line between simple parody and fully fleshed out drama beautifully with complex characters, wonderful shifts in tone, and plenty of twists to keep this quick little hour and 45-minute show from becoming stale.  Don’t get me wrong, the humor is definitely there, especially the all-school Zoom call where the comments get completely out of hand.  But the nuances of these characters also show through with some touching tender moments.  And director Matthew Leavitt keeps that pace, as well as the highs and lows, flowing with the grace of a highly choregraphed dance. 

The ensemble couldn’t be tighter each playing off the other with seeming ease.  Hennessy manages to take that know-it-all that we all know and give her a wonderful sense of purpose and heart.  Ceesay brings in a fantastic counterpart to the immovable object and eventually brings in an arc where she comes into her own.  Song plays that strong and smart member of the group that goes along with it all until her own attitudes burst out hilariously.  And Mattfeld brings in that wonderful “male ally” energy but also gives space to the more touching moments of the piece.

But the one who blew me away was Slavin as the frustrated bureaucrat forced to deal with this chaos.  I’ve seen him over the years as one of those hilarious character actors who elevates any TV show he’s a part of.  But I’d never been fortunate enough to seem him on stage and he was nothing short of his usual brilliance. 

On the surface, “Eureka Day” is not the flashiest of pieces but once you dive in you see how much it has to offer and how it should not be missed.  And so, with my three-letter rating system, I give the Seattle Rep’s production of “Eureka Day” a thoughtful yet gut busting YAY.  Meetings can be painful and most should be an email but some, like this, should not be missed.  Be sure to RSVP “yes” to this one.

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