In a political culture that patronizes and confuses by design, talk has become less than cheap—it’s downright irrelevant and deceitful. Political campaigns now have all the elegance and elocution of mosh pits—pep rallies short on ideas, but fueled with pepper. Words of wisdom are chiseled to 140 characters—not entirely for the sake of economy, but rather inattention and emptiness. Snapchat and other tokens of modern culture disappear from both screen and mind. Talk is nothing but the white noise of television—repetitive and tedious, inanity masquerading as insight.
And our talking heads are the cause of nothing but headaches.
So, a new play by Wallace Shawn, aptly titled, Evening at the Talk House, arrives at the right cultural moment, a theatrical remedy for a malaise in which there are no words to describe such a time when words themselves have failed us.
One wonders whether this was Shawn’s aspiration in mounting this fine production by the New Group, now performing at the Pershing Square Signature Theater. Because even for a man with his distinctive literary pedigree, Evening at the Talk House resounds like an anthem that words do matter, precisely during times when a culture and society has coarsened beyond recognition.
This talk fest takes place at the Talk House, a quaint night spot for the literary set to gather after theater or other cultural offerings. Think Elaine’s, but with fewer A-listers and better food.
The Talk House is now, however, more a metaphor for a culture in decline than a swanky oasis for the bookish and socially conscious. Customers are few; the name of the establishment itself is tantamount to a No Trespassing sign.
Set in some dystopian American future that resembles a fascist state with Orwellian forewarnings, the Talk House is desperate for patrons but rife with paranoia. Citizens are disappearing in some creepy government murder program that enlists ordinary citizens to do the dirty work of disposing of the unwanted or bombing those who have fallen out of America’s favor. Lurking outside of the Talk House is a moral menace that makes drone strikes look positively quaint by comparison.
Indeed, everything is disposable, certainly people, but also the art they once made. The play revolves around a 10-year reunion for an underappreciated play that is now all but forgotten. It was one of those plays about human virtue and higher values that no longer possess much value, not in the culture that exists outside of the Talk House, and arguably not outside of the Pershing Square Signature Theater, either.
Gathered together to celebrate the play, and a former way of life, are the playwright Robert, who also narrates in a quasi- “Our Town” manner, played by Matthew Broderick with his usual wry, bemused charm, the play’s star, Tom (Larry Pine), its composer, Ted (John Epperson), its producer, Bill (Michael Tucker), and its wardrobe assistant, Annette (Claudia Sheer). Rounding out the cast is the always wonderful Jill Eikenberry, who plays Nellie, the infectiously-accommodating proprietor of the Talk House, and two actors who have fallen on hard times, Dick, played by Shawn himself wearing pajamas and sporting a bruised face, and Jane, who is working at the Talk House as a waitress.
Of course, hard times is the ostensible reason why they have all been assembled. Even those who have become successful have lost their way in a world where it is quite easy to disappear. Robert, Tom and Bill all work on a wildly successful comedy TV series that no one confuses for high art. Everyone knows, but scarcely laments, that theater is dead, the well phrased line no longer appreciated, all presumptions of a higher calling have been extinguished by lowbrow, frivolous spectacles.
The movement of the entire play is awash in words, as if the Talk House is the only safe-haven for such a scandalous way to spend an evening. There is talk of former colleagues who have either squandered their talent or sold their souls—some even succumbing to vague but not altogether mysterious deaths. There is political talk of the government’s murder program, not so much its moral implications but the aghast surprise that Ted, Annette and Jane are among its casual practitioners.
And then there is Dick, portrayed by Shawn with his customary irascible bite, who serves as the moral conscience of the play, even though everyone anticipates that in a world where high ideals are artifacts of another age and social value is warped by the economics of despots, he is the very next to go.
An Evening at the Talk House recalls a different time when theater was rich with ideas, and the whole point was to witness characters in conversation, and to follow their lead afterward.
It’s worth the reminder.