Life, death and each rise and fall in-between. All are explored in Will Eno’s “Middletown” directed by Landee Lockhart, a play that opened in the Buchanan Center for the Performing arts on Monday. The characters explored and illustrated the lives of average people and the questions that we all have in our journey toward the end of one life and the beginning of another.
The play opened with a very energetic public speaker who addressed, with great detail, all people before the classic officer-later known to viewers as Robert (Scott Trout), gave the famous lines “Middletown. Population: stable. Elevation: same. The main street is called Main Street” and so on. The story explores the lives of several citizens of Middletown including the main character, Mary (Amber McNew), a pregnant wife who is new to the town; her friend, John; a librarian, a cop, and other memorable characters. At intermission, a fun scene depicting audience members asking the questions we were thinking was played out, and the audience then was returned to the characters with the hope of gaining answers to our questions.
The set stayed consistent throughout the play. The only major change was a space scene and hospital scenes. A plot of grass that gains a tree and a bench was consistent throughout the light changes, character transitions, and property management. Musical mantras move cued the ends of scenes and the overall stage setup is effective.
If you are familiar with plays depicting scandal, outrageous scenes and a linear timeline, you may be confused or even underwhelmed with the normal lives of these characters.
There is conflict, as is necessary in any theatrical production, but it is more internal and subtle. In all, it is frighteningly realistic. “Middletown” is the story of the investigation of all the “regular-people” problems, fears and goals. Themes that are close to home like loneliness, motherhood, anxiety, our own sickness and mortality, and even addiction serve as the conflicts that the characters try to work through.
The play was very focused on this idea of loneliness and how the characters fear their own deaths. One shared conflict was the anxiety and excitement for the addition of Mary’s son to the town. Everyone knows everyone but simultaneously everyone is just another face in the crowd. The actors bring to life the ideas of these characters as they confront their biggest fears by coincidentally living them, from being lonely to not achieving the goals they had set for themselves.
For the most part, the play was enjoyable. The characters interacted with the audience making it interesting and setting it apart from performances that treat the audience as just that. The scenes were believable and the actors were very truthful in conveying the feelings and intentions of their characters. In doing this, the play lost energy toward the end. This loss seemed necessary for the conclusion that the characters be calmer and collected, in contrast to the beginning over-the-top energy. Overall, it was definitely worth going to see.
Eno offers a new perspective on the average life and our position in the universe. It was interesting and dare I say difficult for me to hear and acknowledge that even if you are a regular person, you are lucky, and it is a miracle to be human. The idea is that we are all in “Middletown” and we come and go, as Robert so pointedly says “crying, by the way, in both directions.”
