Be thankful your family isn’t as dysfunctional as the one in Will Eno’s bizarre and clever play
It took a while for the audience to settle into this uncomfortable play. It wasn’t until the first laugh was released, about 15 minutes in, that the crowd seemed to let go of the awkwardness they were tightly gripping and lean into the sheer strangeness that is The Open House. Once it was deemed acceptable to laugh at the cutting insults doled out by the invalid father (Kevin Reifel), a sort of collective relief washed through the theater (so this is how this will go.)
Indeed, The Open House is the type of play that teaches you how to enjoy it as it carries on. I’m not sure I can tell you what it’s about because I’m still rather unclear about that. I can tell you there’s a family, one even more dysfunctional than mine. There’s a father who’s suffered a stroke and two kids who’ve returned home to be with him to show that they care. There’s a mother (Corinne Wieben) who probably never should have become one, and an uncle who seems more than a few cans short of a six pack.
They’re all sitting in a living room, and if the aim were to make the audience feel as awkward as the family members feel, then job well done. The father is mean, closer to cruel, and it’s hard to tell if it’s his sickness making him this way, or if this is how he’s always treated those closest to him. We soon learn it’s the latter.
We suffer through a series of attempts from the son and daughter to show their love all while being ridiculed and belittled by their father. When the daughter (Leah Rohlfs) finally asks why they are like this, we understand that they have always been like this (and we breathe a sigh of relief and vow to run home and call our folks and thank them, because at least our family isn’t this bad.) Perspective. This play most certainly gives one perspective.
Then, it gets even more bizarre when one by one the family members leave. And new people show up — a real estate agent, a man viewing the home — and the title begins to make some sense, but the play doesn’t. But it does get less uncomfortable and perhaps more familiar.
These characters seem normal, nice, fun even. It’s a welcome change from the sad, depressing family. But what does it mean? What message is the playwright, Will Eno, trying to relay? I’ve spent the better part of two days trying to figure that out.
The Open House is 75 minutes with no intermission. This gives you plenty of time to go for a drink afterwards and shake your head with your companion while discussing just what the heck you just saw. This is going to be necessary, trust me. You’re going to have questions and while neither of you will have the answers, the questions will begin to help you make a bit of sense out of this clever play that most certainly flew above my head.
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