Aiming for consensus: Eli, Carina, Don, May and Suzanne. Photo: Richard Farland.
‘This Is Our Happy Place’ declares the sign on the classroom where the school’s Executive Committee (all parent volunteers, of course) are gathered to discuss and pontificate on matters of importance. Anyone who has ever attended a committee or a strata meeting or any convention where people of diverse views attempt to get consensus under a veneer of friendship will recognise the characters portrayed in Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day, a social satire that has already garnered great reviews in London and New York. Spector wrote it in 2017, little knowing how much bigger some of the questions he poses – to hilarious, and occasionally sobering, effect – would affect all of us a few years later.
It’s 2018 and Eureka Day, a private primary school in Berkeley, California, is a bastion of progressive ideals: representation, gender identity, social justice. The parents on the Executive Committee value inclusion above all else – until a mumps outbreak forces a rethink of the school’s liberal vaccine policy. As cases rise and polite debate descends into ideological warfare, the school leadership is forced to confront one of our era’s defining questions: How do you build consensus, when no one can agree on the facts?
While the committee is at odds with each other, this cast – directed by Outhouse Theatre Co’s Craig Baldwin – works together wonderfully well and cohesively. Jamie Oxenbould is a perfect choice for the driven and somewhat harried committee convener Don, who likes to quote Rumi. He is, as ever, a master of comic timing. We also have Suzanne (Katrina Retallick), a somewhat opinionated blonde who is used to being heard; Eli (Christian Charisiou), who is one of those annoyingly self-centred people who constantly interrupts others – and don’t let’s forget that he’s also an important financial sponsor to the school; the quieter single mum May (Deborah An), who is burning with her own issues (not least because of her emotional entanglement with another committee member); and new parent Carina (Branden Christine), who’s found herself on the committee because of its much-vaunted inclusiveness and who is, at first, both detached and allowed hardly any voice.
Full marks and five gold stars (we are in a school, remember) to set and costume designer Kate Beere. Kiddy chairs in primary colours force adults into postures as uncomfortable as their views; projected drawings change as the mood does; and the absolutely hilarious live-stream meeting involving unseen but definitely heard members of the wider school community is a joy in itself, easily the funniest moments in this shrewd little satire. (And credit here to lighting and video designer Aron Murray.)
The mumps outbreak is of course a serious concern, and the pace and mood change accordingly. Most moving is the scene between Retallick and Christine, when personal concerns about vaccines are given serious space.
What starts as a seriously funny take-down of ultra liberal leaning opinions segues into some more serious considerations of medical concerns and the conspiracy theories that rage in our age. But, no doubt about this, Eureka Day is wonderfully comic and well worth seeing. And the real eureka moment, which is unstated and comes at the end of the play, will satisfy the cynics amongst us.
Produced by Outhouse Theatre and the Seymour Centre, Eureka Day runs until 21 June at the Reginald Theatre.
Tickets $43-$59; https://www.seymourcentre.com/
