The Open House
By Will Eno
“People have been born into families since people started getting born at all. Playwrights have been trying to write Family Plays for a long time, too. People have been trying nobly for years and years to have plays solve in two hours what hasn't been solved in many lifetimes. This has to stop.”
The skeletons are all out of the closet in this pessimistic/optimistic intelligent comedy of family degeneration/regeneration.
Play Dates
May 22nd to 25th, 2025. Five Performances.
Characters
Father – 50s to 60s – wheelchair-bound because of a stroke, acerbic, cruelly sarcastic and mocking, with a touch of an internal suffering sickness
Mother - 50s to 60s – shell-shocked and distracted, with a faint memory of promising and pleasant family moments
Uncle - 50s to 60s – a widowed hang-about, as present as wallpaper, but hopeful as a moth slowly emerging from a damaged cocoon
Daughter – 20s to 30s – soldiering through this family homecoming; a battle-fatigued corporal mustering her laggard troops into a working unit
Son - 20s to 30s – plodding and confused, with a gentle nature to belie the frustration of family
And, by the end of the play, each of these characters morph into a completely different person who will be, inevitably, the same.
A WMT Production
Produced by Luis Reis
Directed by Jeff Madden