Preview: Eureka Day at 4th Wall Theatre Co.

As the play opens, the headmaster at a private school and four parents on the campus board of directors are having one of their regular meetings. One of the main issues: the open policy they have had on vaccinations and in fact, a good number of kids at the school have not been vaccinated.

The school is closed down because of an outbreak of mumps. Other parents can’t be present because of the outbreak and are on a Zoom phone call.

It’s Tony- and Drama Desk Award-winning Eureka Day at 4th Wall Theatre Co., and Artistic Director Jennifer Dean, with a good dose of serendipity, has secured a live one, especially given the recent Texas measles outbreak. She is directing the one act with a run time estimated at two hours. It was written by American playwright Jonathan Spector who sets the play in Berkeley, California in 2018 and wrote the play before the pandemic began.

“You see the conversation of the parents online, you see their chats happening, on top of the dialog that’s happening in the room,” Dean says.

Everything starts out pleasantly enough but the discussion deteriorates during the presentation of a letter from the health department listing potential side effects or impacts of having mumps. “As the play goes, there’s the whole conversation of ‘vaccinations cause these problems’ and herd immunity and how to we take care of the individual versus the community,” Dean says. 

The cast includes founding resident artists Kim Tobin-Lehl and Philip Lehl star, Jasmine Renee Thomas (Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Fairview), Nick Farco (Sense & Sensibility, The Lifespan of a Fact) and Laine Chan in her 4th Wall debut.

“It’s such a timely piece,” Dean says. “We were able to have a zoom phone call with Jonathan Spector, the author, at the beginning of our rehearsal. He was so generous with his time. We talked about the play, its origins.”

Spector started on the play in 2014 or 2015, she says. “One of the things I asked him, when you originally started this, I feel like your idea for the play was probably more about how people disagree, how people try to reach consensus, how they communicate with each other or don’t and less about the actual vaccination. But in light of everything that has happened, that has really become a big focus of the play.

“He said ‘Yeah, absolutely.’ He had experienced just personally living in Berkeley, California where he would be totally aligned with people, agree about everything and then all of a sudden would find out they didn’t vaccinate their kids.  It was like: how can we see eye to eye on everything but disagree on this issue? And how do you have a conversation about that? And that’s kind of where the play started.”

Dean said Spector, who describe Eureka as “a drama with comedy”  thought that no one would care about his play except someone living in Berkeley with kids. “But as the play as continued to grow and develop, you could put it anywhere. It works everywhere,” Dean says.

“In some of the scenes they’re trying so hard to be respectful and inclusive and make sure that what they say doesn’t offend anybody that it actually makes it more difficult. instead of just saying what you really think or feel or what you believe,” she says.

The wheels fall off in Scene 3 in the Zoom conversation, Dean says. ” [We see] how people feel so free to say things they would never say to somebody’s face. The divisiveness that we’ve seen continue to develop over the last few years. The play just touches on everything. It’s so timely, it’s so well-written, the dialog is amazing and funny and sharp.”

She stresses that 4th Wall is not trying to tell the audience what to believe, “We’re trying to present this situation and how these people work to try and solve the problem in a way that everybody’s happy until you realize that’s not possible.”

 “[Eureka Day] allows people to sit back for a minute and take it in and reflect on ‘what am I doing in my own life that is shutting people down or not taking care of each other? How do I move through the world a little differently in light of what I’ve seen? And that you can’t have dialog with each other and make progress if we’re not willing to listen to each other’s point of view,” Dean says.

“Theater at its core helps us see ourselves and learn how we can get better. I think this play dos that really well.”

Performances are scheduled for September 19 through October 11 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays at Spring Street, 1824 Spring Street. For more information, call 832-767-4991 or visit 4thwalltheatreco.com. $25-$70.