Evening at The Talk House (The New Group at The Pershing Square Signature Center) by Wallace Shawn

One of the things I adore about productions from The New Group is their willingness to take on plays that deal with tough subjects.  I can’t imagine too many other theater companies that would have staged the terrifically terrifying Mercury Fur.

Evening at The Talk House starts off innocuously enough as a get-together to celebrate the tenth anniversary of a play’s debut.  Matthew Broderick’s Robert is the play’s author who now writes for a successful television show and his deadpan narration of the roles each of the guests had in the play belie the shocking information that will soon emerge.

John Epperson (of Lypsinka fame) is Ted who wrote the show’s music; Larry Pine is Tom, the plays hero and star of Robert’s tv show; Claudia Shear’s Annette was the show’s costumer and Michael Tucker’s Bill was a producer who is now a talent agent.  The Talk House is private club that used to be the hang out for cast and crew but has seen better days.  The chirpy proprietress, Nellie, as played by Jill Eikenberry is a sunny-side-of-the-street gal and her assistant Jane (Annapurna Sriram) ends up serving, in addition to drinks and finger food, the most disturbing dialogue of the evening.  Wallace Shawn is a washed-up actor who is taking refuge in one of the club’s upstairs rooms and in the warmth of Nellie’s ministrations.

The real subject of the play emerges slowly with the cocktail banter and reminiscing. You begin to get a sense of what’s coming when Annette admits that in addition to doing private tailoring, she also spends time “targeting”.  This turns out to be a job, seemingly part time, in which people target those who pose a ‘threat to us’ for murder.  Not only is Annette very cavalier about this but she ends up not being the only one of the group engaging in this behavior.

Bill seems to be the only one capable of moral outrage at this and he is the subject of multiple people’s scorn at his inability to understand how people on another continent can pose said ‘threat’.

Of this group, one has been beaten by his friends and another spent time as a gainfully employed ‘murderer.’  It becomes clear that television is the only ‘art’ form left and unsuccessful or washed up actors are disposable.  The numbness with which targeting, beatings and murder are discussed is horrifying and horrifyingly current.

Evening at The Talk House is uncomfortable to watch.  It is one of those plays that had me leaving the theater a little bit vertiginous.  It is also a work I will not soon forget.  How sad and scary it is to me that we live in a world where fear of unknown people we perceive to be threats is blasted at us daily; where ‘reality’ television is considered art; where true emotion is often sublimated as ‘not cool’.  How beautiful to me that we live in a world where art which evokes emotion, discussion and contemplation like Evening at The Talk House can be made.