Andrew Boyce’s set for the American Conservatory Theater’s (ACT) production of Will Eno’s The Realistic Joneses will make you yearn for suburbia — the quiet of the nights, the way a backyard can seem to be a forest in the dark. It conveys an appreciation for living in the moment that captures the best aspects of Eno’s play and work.
Eno has ascended from cult appreciation to major star in recent years. The dramatist has a deft touch with dialogue and possesses what critics and audiences often describe as a quirky sensibility. A light haze of absurdist humor hangs over all Eno’s plays, no matter how serious the subject matter. Tragedy: A Tragedy is about the end of the world; The Flu Season, insanity and suicide; The Open House, the gradual disappearance of a family. And The Realistic Joneses is about dying. Slowly.
You certainly feel the grandeur of Eno’s designs and aspirations in this drama. His characters’ concerns are everyday ones, but his viewpoint is cosmic. And that tension is what makes his work fascinating, if also somewhat unrealized and jerry-rigged.
The Realistic Joneses begins in the dark and under the stars where we find a middle-aged couple, Bob and Jennifer Jones, sitting outdoors on their back patio, talking about nothing in particular. Then the Joneses’ trash cans tip over and the play tenses. They think it might be a skunk or raccoon, but we know better: it’s the neighbors, who also go by the name of Jones. Only these Joneses — John and Pony — are younger and a bit loopier. “We’re Joneses, too,” Pony enthusiastically exclaims in actress Allison Jean White’s hippy-chick twang.
What follows is a lovely scene of two couples with little in common besides a name, trying, to the best of their abilities, to make small talk. And because they don’t know each other, they’re forced into a disarming intimacy. John and Pony Jones both have to pee and their forays into the older Joneses’ bathrooms have the feel of a subtle and unnecessary violation. Eno is tricky in how he manages entrances and exits, and so the brief absence of one set of Joneses can trigger another a confession from the other. This is how we find out that Bob is sick with a degenerative disease.