The Underlying Chris @ Second Stage

Previews begin tonight. Anyone going?

Picked up a TodayTix rush for this eve. I love most of Eno's work, and Kenny Leon doesn't strike me as a pick for an Eno play, which excites me even more.

So I'm a bit mixed, leaning more toward the positive. I truly believe that spoilers will not in any way ruin your viewing of this play. But, as I know a lot of people like to go in blind, I'll try to be purposefully vague.

The Underlying Chris explores themes and ideas that are practically identical to Eno's recent play, "Wakey Wakey." Ideas about living life with this cloudy and oftentimes meaningless acceleration, ideas about regrets, about death. But whereas "Wakey Wakey" puts a magnifying glass on that last, blinking chapter, "The Underlying Chris" attempts to view the sum of one persons life in its most impactful snapshots from birth to the inevitable end, and how we are always new people. As the titular character says holding a baby in his/her arms, "A hundred people are holding you right now."

However, with so many themes and ideas overlapping with "Wakey Wakey," I found myself thinking often about how much more eloquently those themes were explored in that play. I anticipated a moment of truly definitive, Eno-esque magic that ultimately never came. Perhaps the finally image really is the goal; life culminating of all of the people we are. We are never the same person. We are always different from the person we were five minutes before. But then again, we're still "Chris."

And make no mistaken; while at its current state it is not some of Eno's best work, it is still far more interesting a lot of other things this season. This is a good intro for anyone who hasn't seen his work. If you have, you will be more than a little disappointed that it isn't as funny or as poignant as some of his more recent plays.

The show is a brisk 80 minutes with no intermission. The 10 actors are all doing very fine work, all quite literally carrying the same amount of weight (if you see it, you'll immediately understand). And the children are really, really excellent! Second Stage has done a great job this season pulling some great work from child actors, first "Make Believe" then this. And Leon's direction is serviceable and precisely what the piece requires Maldonado's set is absolutely brilliant and a marvel in its own right.

All in all, glad I got to catch the first. A fascinating yet familiar, breezy play.

Seeing this in two weeks. Looking forward to it.

Gonna try to catch this before it closes!

I still feel like this was lesser Eno, but I'm happy they got the Critic's Pick. Although the Times has been notoriously darling of his work, from The Open House to Thom Pain.

I'm glad more than one publication has mentioned the parallels between this and "Wakey Wakey." I just wish more had mentioned how this just...wasn't nearly as good.

For me, it was an amazing phantasmagoria of a play. I was really moved at the end. The acting for me, was strong, and I was particularly impressed by Denise Burse and Charles Turner, whose work towards the end of the play I found really effective. Maybe the direction was a little "slick" but it did not take away the overall strength of Eno's vision.