If it makes you laugh at life’s ironies and then makes you cry at their truths, then it is a great play.
Nate Eppler’s “Keeping Up With the Joneses” performed at The University of Memphis in an extended run Oct. 11-13, is a great play.
People shuffle in, pick seats and chit-chat about trivial things, but when the lights go down, a hush falls over the crowd as soon as the curtain is drawn.
The Joneses are a nuclear family in a nuclear world, with each family member going through unprecedented changes and learning something new about each other and themselves. You struggle to keep up with their changes. The government that Mr. Jones works for is struggling to keep up with the arms race, constantly trying to out-weapon its international neighbors. The play begs you to see how, but question why, things happen.
Through the comically real characters and their clever story, you feel the pain of fate, the completeness of hindsight, the sorrow of change--of doors open and shut. It is silent in the theater.
The play closes and the lights go up, and after the applause is over there is silence for a few moments more.
The silence is the sound of people thinking over lives and families--who we are, and how and why. There is silence in reverence of the idea that even if you are a genius, you will never be ready for what life brings.
After everyone has left, playwright Nate Eppler’s footsteps--as he leaves his back row seat--are the only sounds to be heard. He looks at the empty stage, saying good-bye to that hour when everyone stopped to listen and to think. He exits the theater into a world that is much in need of that kind of silence.I could keep on saying that “Keeping Up With the Joneses” was a great play over and over, but you owe it to yourself to know from experience. The acting was flawless and the characters well-conceived and realistic in their presentation of the complex relationships of a family. I promise you’ll laugh, but most importantly, you’ll see a lot of yourself in the Joneses.
