โWe spend a lot of time thinking about the end and the beginning, in kind of self-aggrandizing ways. We talk about the miracle of birth and the mystery of death. But, by definition, all of our lives take place in the middle of those two sort of unknowable events, in this great and often unexamined middle. So I wanted to write a play that put some thoughts and feelings in the air about the miracle and the mystery and that alluded to deep and unknown forces. But then really just have people going to the store and fixing the sink and going through the normal things of looking for love and getting up in the morning. Because thatโs how we live.โ
Will Eno, talking about this play โMiddletownโ to the Boston Globe, 2013
Donโt expect high drama, low comedy or even a plot.
โMiddletown,โ The Rogue Theatreโs summer offering, is about life. The highs, the lows, the mundane.
โIt covers a lot of murky subjects,โ says Christopher Johnson, who is directing the production.
โItโs silly, fun, lighthearted, and life and death. Itโs profoundly serious and fraught with mishaps and really a lot of fun when you look at it from the right angle.โ
The play is about the comings and goings of the people in the nondescript town of Middletown. If it sounds like Thornton Wilderโs โOur Town,โ it is. But it is not. The New York Times called it โSamuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation.โ
Told through a series of connected vignettes, we follow the people in Middletown. A lonely newcomer whose husband is often away, a quirky librarian, a town cop with a mean streak, a tender doctor, a conflicted handyman โ the town is populated with people we run into every day.
And yes, we watch them live and all that that implies. And that is the beauty of it, says Johnson.
โItโs about the profundity of the mundane,โ he says.
โItโs life at its smallest and simplest, and thatโs where truth and beauty are found. Itโs in the little exchanges we have every day. Thereโs not a lot of action, drama. Itโs about trying to live a normal life, or struggling to live a normal life.โ
Eno explained it like this in that Boston Globe interview: โI wrote this play and mean it to be a kind of testament to the difficulty of consciousness, or a picture of the complications of the simplest life.โ
That translates into a play that is hard to turn away from, says Johnson. โThe thing that surprises me is how interesting the everyday aspects of life can be.โ
And itโs a piece ready-made for Rogue audiences.
โItโs a perfect Rogue play because the language is difficult and engaging,โ he says. โA good Rogue play really makes you work in your seats, and I think thatโs what our audiences come for โ an engaging script and something to think about when they leave. And thatโs โMiddletownโ.โ
And what is it he hopes audiences think about when they leave the theater?
โI want the audience to be reminded of themselves more than they are distracted from themselves,โ he says. โI want it to be revelatory to them. Thatโs what theater should do and what this play does a really, really good job of.โ
