Will Eno is a playwright who knows he is a playwright, and doesn’t ever stop wondering what being a playwright means. This might be a little unsettling to those who like to get swept up in a love story, or a tragedy. But Eno has suspicions about anyone getting swept anywhere. He’s always got a suspicious eye out for that broom and dustpan.
In The Flu Season, now being staged by Youngblood Theatre, he puts two playwrights on stage—or at least two playwright consciousnesses—calling them Prologue and Epilogue, and enlists them in a meta-commentary about the story, the kind you’d get on a “Special Edition” DVD. But here, it’s clear that these two collaborators will never work together again. They’re pulling from opposite ends of the spectrum—triumph vs. tragedy, darkness vs. light, King Lear vs. Touched by an Angel.
Prologue (played with wonderful James Lipton pomp and enthusiasm by Andrew Voss) is wide-eyed in the glow of his new creation. He has called it The Snow Romance, and it’s as gushy as its Hallmark title suggests. Epilogue (the charmingly deadpan Ken Williams) is schlumpy and cynical, a Zach Galifianakis with a Ph.D. who forgot to take his meds. In between this existential tug-of-war is the story itself, about two residents of a psychiatric care facility who fall in love (Tess Cinpinski and Jason Waszak) and the doctors who are treating them—who also happen to fall in love (Greg Flattery and Cheryl Roloff).
What’s remarkable about Michael Cotey’s direction is how it serves all the aspects of Eno’s imagination. There are spot-on realizations of Eno’s deft word play (Q: “Are your mother and father still together?” A: “My father is.”). But he pays great attention to character as well, allowing some true moments of tenderness to bloom. The result is true to Eno’s intentions: telling a compelling, emotionally engaging story, while being true to the nature of the storytelling—its lies, quirks and glories. As one of the characters says, Eno “creates new constellations out of old stars.”
