Eureka Day, Outhouse Theatre Company, Seymour Centre, Reginald Theatre, 29 May-21 Jun

 

"Eureka Day" is a comedy set in a private, somewhat liberal Californian school during the 2018-19 school year - when the school is disrupted by a case of the mumps which precipitates a debate about immunization that nobody is ready for and which rips the school apart. It's a wild look at modern liberalism in crisis - the language that emphasises mutual respect and the way that mutual respect is abused by people who cannot brook any compromises at all - and how civil debate breaks down into emotional pleading and gratuitous insult. 

Jonathan Spector's script is sharp and fast and twisted, starting out as a light parody of committeespeak and the way sensitivity feels gratuitously squeezed like cheese sauce on top of discussions, before exploding into rage, hidden agendas and power plays as intense as any more obviously political drama. The highlight is, perhaps, a zoom-meeting sequence that dissolves as the comments section pops up with each comment taking everyone further into an unresolvable argument, though in some ways this does constitute the greatest challenge in Craig Baldwin's production - the comments upstage a lot of what the actors on stage are doing during this sequence and it's difficult for them to regain focus during this sequence. It's something that is intrinsic to the script and I'm not sure if it is actually something where you can stop the onstage actors from being upstaged in this sequence - here, certainly, the battle is lost. 

Elsewhere, the cast are strong - Jamie Oxenbould as the school's principal, Don, proves to have a bit more political ability hiding under his sweet surface, Branden Christine as new arrival Carina is a great entry-point character with a steely strength emerging, Christian Charisiou as the somewhat smug Eli gets a few surprising comeupances, Deborah An as May goes throguh some emotional turmoil and as the utterly sure-of-herself Suzanne, Katrina Retallick utterly epitomises a certain type of person with a smiling assassin approach. 

This is a clever look at modern cultural norms and the ways they can break up the most determinedly-touchy-feely communities - while it isn't quite the villain-free-zone it pretends to be, it's still a good reflection on how we live now.