Catalyst Catches Cold with Flu Season
Catalyst Theater’s production of The Flu Season is something you want to like. You've got a small, scrappy theater company taking on a complex, ambitious work. There's a fine cast assembled, and its purely functional set contrasts nicely with its fantastical backdrop of abstract, stormy trees.
But attributes aside, it comes down to the fact that, as a play, Will Eno’s work is just a little too pretentious to be enjoyed. The work takes place largely within an author’s head as he’s constructing a play about two doctors and two patients in a psychiatric hospital. First the patients fall in love, then the doctors do; then the patients fall out of love, and we see how it all unravels - with a little help from Prologue (Alexander Strain) and Epilogue (Michael John Casey).
And the work does unravel - obliquely and depressingly. Moments which feel like they should be poetic (one man urges his lover to have the last word in a conversation; she offers him, apropos of nothing, “sympathy”) feel more contrived than lyrical. The characters seem like sketches and mouthpieces for muddy philosophical remunerations rather than individuals (which makes the work’s deflating conclusion seem more empty than anything else).
Eno’s play is not without intelligence and humor – many of Prologue's and Epilogue's wry observations draw laughs, and the work cleverly peppers the characters' dialogue with non sequiturs from the author. Perhaps The Flu Season wouldn’t seem quite so grating if we hadn’t just seen another, knowingly-self aware work that interweaves between its plot and a writer’s subconscious – namely, David Greenspan’s much more artful “She Stoops To Comedy,” just staged by Woolly Mammoth.
Catalyst does what it can with The Flu Season – Strain, with his smug smiles and impish demeanor, is a particular delight, and Gillian Porter as the female patient is raw and realistic. Director Jessica Burgess's decision to have Prologue and Epilogue interact directly with the audience proves particularly engaging. But the irritating source material ultimately proves too great a hurdle to conquer.
The Flu Season runs through June 2 at the Capitol Hill Arts workshop. Tickets are available online.