The Realistic Joneses Ustinov Theatre, Bath
Will Eno’s Broadway hit The Realistic Joneses is a breath of fresh air – dark, funny, with dialogue that makes you sit up, laugh and listen.
Set in small-town America, two couples, both named Jones, live nextdoor to each other.
It could be anywhere, in any suburb, and both couples are just ordinary people, but with lots of dark, underlying issues – some very dark indeed.
Casting is superb in this awardwinning play about humanity and ordinariness.
Sharon Small, as housewife Jennifer, plays suburban wife to Bob (Corey Johnson), who we find out is suffering from a degenerative neurological disease that affects his language and communication.
His offbeat, no-nonsense humour is hilarious at times, caustic and sarcastic, and he clearly wants nothing to do with the new neighbours at first.
Peter Mckintosh’s stark set with cardboard boxes and sleek, sliding doors for set changes is the perfect backdrop for this play, which is essentially about language and dialogue, or lack of it.
Eno’s language is incredible – he makes you think about ordinary words in a fresh new way, and the dialogue becomes extremely funny and cynical in the mouth and words of John, played superbly by Jack Laskey.
He is immense in the role as quirky, eccentric, quite crazy and off-the-wall John, husband of completely whacky, neurotic and kooky Pony (Clare Foster), who move in nextdoor to Bob and Jennifer.
We meet them first in Bob and Jennifer’s back garden. The meeting of these neighbours is wonderfully awkward, the small talk between the couples and the unopened bottle of wine agonising to watch.
It is the nothingness of this play that is so extraordinary – Eno’s keen sense of the beautiful in the normal. Nothing really happens, but so much does.
Both couples struggle to communicate with each other, their lives slowly descending into some horrible dark abyss.
We feel their pain. Eno’s use of the English language has a unique freshness which makes you sit up and listen. The dialogue is extraordinary in this 2014 play, which won three awards on Broadway and was voted best American play by the Guardian.
Casting and acting are superb and you can hardly take your eyes off the stage as each character displays their own painful, everyday anxieties, terror and fear.
The Ustinov’s new artistic director, Deborah Warner, will have a tough act to follow. It is a real coup for Bath to play host to this most excellent play.
Simon Evans has given Eno’s masterpiece new life with bold casting and design.
To have such theatrical excellence on our doorstep in the intimate environs of the Ustinov is a gift for lovers of new theatre in Bath.
The Realistic Joneses runs until Saturday, March 7.