‘Eureka Day’ – Written by Jonathan Spector. Directed by Margot Bordelon. Scenic Design by Luciana Stecconi. Costume Design by Zoe Sundra. Lighting Design by Cha See. Sound Design by Daniela Hart, Noel Nichols, Bailey Trierweiler & UptownWorks. Presented by The Huntington, 264 Huntington Ave., Boston through June 28.
By Shelley A. Sackett
It’s not every playwright who could find gut-splitting humor in the raw topic of divergent views about vaccinations and their collateral damage of incivility, intolerance and epistemic crisis (a situation where society loses its shared consensus on fundamental facts that results in the mechanisms used to determine what is a true breakdown).
Not to mention preventable life-threatening illness.
Yet, Jonathan Spector has done just that and more with Eureka Day, his 100-minute play in production at The Huntington through June 28. Timely, razor-sharp and depressingly pertinent, the play takes place during the 2018/2019 school year, penned right before COVID (during Trump I) unleashed a Pandora’s Box that makes us long for the innocence and sanity of Eureka Day. (It won the 2025 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.)
The plot revolves around a five-member school committee at a private fictional elementary school in Berkeley, California, that prides itself on diversity, equity, inclusion and political correctness. The members smugly delight in congratulating themselves about how diverse, equal and inclusive they are. Every community member is listened to and accepted. They “hold space for” all opinions and decisions are reached by consensus.
If there were a school chant, it would be “Om shanti.” If there were a school song, it would be “Kumbaya.”
All this has worked perfectly enough until the rubber hits the road when the committee’s well-meant liberalism has to confront a real issue where unanimity may be a pipe dream.
The play opens with the members called for an unprecedented emergency meeting. Spector methodically establishes each character’s persona as they act (and react) in response to Head of School Don’s (a splendid Ken Cheeseman) presentation of the issue at hand.
First, he opens the meeting with quotes from Rumi, the Sufi mystic, poet, and founder of the Islamic brotherhood known as the Mevlevi Order. He dons an almost creepy smile, swooning as he reads.
An anonymous parent has submitted a request to amend the school’s admission form in response to an outbreak of mumps. There are currently no vaccination requirements. The proposal is to alter that policy, requiring a number of vaccinations, including — and especially — mumps.
Suzanne (an equally splendid Nancy Lemenager) quickly emerges as the committee’s (and perhaps the entire town’s) self-appointed doyenne. Well-off, well-coiffed, and well-outfitted, she interrupts, mind-reads, Suzanne-splains, and all but demands fealty. She reminds everyone that she has served on this board for 30 years, joking that she had her last child so she could keep serving.
It turns out that Suzanne is also a rabid anti-vaxxer who would die on her sword before vaccinating her own children, let alone demanding that others vaccinate theirs.
Suddenly, it also turns out that her championing “holding space for others’ points of view” is mere lip service unless those views mirror hers.
Single mom Meiko (Sasha Diamond) spends the meeting with eyes glued to her knitting, but doesn’t miss a beat. Eli (Japhet Balaban) is swimming in tech nouveau riches and prides himself on the open marriage he and his wife enjoy. He is only slightly less disruptive than Suzanne, derailing conversations mid-syllable.
Last is Carina (a smooth Eunice Woods), a recent transplant to the Eureka community. She is this year’s committee’s at-large “new parent” representative. She is also its only Black member.
The plot thickens as it is revealed that Meiko’s child has mumps, that she and Eli are having an affair, that Eli’s son contracted mumps with dire consequences after playing with Meiko’s daughter, and that Carina is the anonymous parent requesting a change in admission policy.
Further complicating matters is the fact that the city’s health division was alerted to the outbreak and has written a letter that states unequivocally that no student is to be allowed back into the school without documentation of vaccination until there is “no risk of exposure.”
Don, the wannabe peacemaker, is about to have a night he won’t soon forget. You can almost hear Bette Davis crooning, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s about to be a bumpy ride.”
Illusions of harmony and consensus quickly melt as the members approach the issue with the tact and finesse of bulls in a china closet. Hoping to garner support, Suzanne suggests a “Community-activated conversation” on Zoom. Don opens the meeting and encourages participants to use the chat tab (which is projected above the committee members in a font large enough to actually read).
These comments quickly devolve from private, individual conversations to the kind of tasteless, offensive attacks that have come to define disagreements in this age of anything goes.
They are also belly-laugh hilarious, and it’s an interesting sensation to cringe and laugh for such a prolonged (perhaps too prolonged?) period of time.
The rest of the play may feel a bit dated, circular, and unnuanced at times, but there is no denying that Spector has written a play that both plumbs the limits of honest, benevolent, open-mindedness and allows us to recognize and poke fun at ourselves. He also poses some serious questions whose answers come with serious consequences.
What exactly is acceptable “collateral damage” to achieve a policy goal? At what point must “majority rule?” And who gets to decide how that majority is determined?
Written and first performed in pre-COVID times, the failure of a utopia played to a different crowd when it premiered. In 2025, as we grapple with the changes seven years have wrought, Spector brilliantly adds a single line to the play’s end that endears its squabbling characters for their naïveté at what’s in store in this tragicomical new world.
“Work hard,” Don announces in his farewell and final all-school address. “It’s going to be clear skies and smooth sailing as we launch together into the 2019-2020 school year.”
The audience erupted in raucous laughter, applause, and deep cathartic exhalations on opening night.
Recommended.
For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org
