I'm not sure yet how I feel about my response to this, but I'm fairly certain that the show has my favorite pre-show announcement in a few years. At least since SISTER ACT and probably since SPAMALOT.
And that's kind of the problem with the play as performed; it is a collection of some downright fascinating and fantastic moments that add up to much less than the sum of their parts. I liked the set at first, but as it became clear how they used it I liked it less and less. There were some truly delightful scenes and exchanges, both on a pure dialogue/language level and also some on an interesting character dynamic level, but there is such a paperthin plot that it's hard for it to build to anything of interest since Eno seems much more interested in minutiae, linguistics and behavior (and he's quite skilled at presenting the quirks he unearths in all of our less-than-eloquent moments).
The cast really was quite game, though, and they'd have to be for this material to be engaging for the duration of the show. Without any momentum scene-to-scene, the force of energy comes from the characterizations and line readings and they all excel. I'm just not sure there's enough to recommend to any non-partisans who aren't going in as fans of the cast or Eno's perspective on life and language.
Words don't deserve that kind of malarkey. They're innocent, neutral, precise, standing for this, describing that, meaning the other, so if you look after them you can build bridges across incomprehension and chaos. But when they get their corners knocked off, they're no good anymore…I don't think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.
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