The Realistic Joneses - by Will Eno (Paperback)

About the Book

A wonderfully moving new play by the Pulitzer Prize finalist author of Thom Pain (based on nothing).

Book Synopsis

"Plays as funny and moving, as wonderful and weird as The Realistic Joneses do not appear often on Broadway. Or ever, really... Mr. Eno's voice may be the most singular of his generation." -Charles Isherwood, New York Times

"As usual, Eno's dialogue is a marvel of compression and tonal control, trivial chitchat flipping into cosmic profundity with striking ease... There's much to savor: the dry but meaningful banter, the joy of humans sharing time and space, battling the darkness with a joke or silence. Life in Enoland isn't what you'd call realistic -- it's more real than that." -David Cote, Time Out New York

"A macabre and melancholy yet strangely delightful comedy... In The Realistic Joneses the world is familiar and, then again, very scary. It's also weird and cruel and profound in all sorts of unexpected places -- as sad as life but a whole lot funnier." -Linda Winer, Newsday

"A funny yet poignant play... Eno long ago staked his claim as a linguistic hipster who reimagines the absurdist likes of Beckett and Albee for our post-Seinfeld age... 'Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, ' we are told in Beckett, and so it is with this very fine play where laughter exists a heartbeat, or heartbreak, away from tears." -Matt Wolf, Telegraph (UK)

Bob and Jennifer and their new neighbors, John and Pony, are two suburban couples who have more in common than their identical last names. This existential comedy, pitched in Will Eno's singular voice, finds the darkness, sweetness and hilarity in our fleeting and ordinary days, as we seek to reveal ourselves, and conceal ourselves, often in the same minute. Sometimes there are only short-term answers to life's eternal questions, but all four Joneses, like all of us, are going to try their best, in very different ways.

Review Quotes

"An elliptical, funny, dark, strangely moving new play... The Realistic Joneses suggests that change, which means getting older, comes fast and, when manifest, is like being on a runaway train with someone you might now not know." --Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune

"The wizardry of Eno's craft is that, as surrealistic as this world may seem, and as awkwardly funny as the action is, theatergoers most certainly identify with these characters' loneliness... The Realistic Joneses may be the most singular work I've seen in some time." --E. Kyle Minor, New Haven Register

"The Realistic Joneses is thrilling to watch for Mr. Eno's way with dialogue, which eludes and embraces a rhythmic and humane weirdness... In his hands, awkwardness feels not just uncomfortable but dramatically vital. His recognition of the frailty of language--his delight in the drama of subtext, the real mode of twenty-first-century communication--creates space for the audience to interpret what they are seeing." --Economist

"The Realistic Joneses makes stinging, sometimes wistful observations about the challenges we face as individuals and in relationships... Using the intriguingly offbeat dialogue that is his hallmark, Eno draws his four characters to each other in ways that movingly emphasize the ultimate commonality of the human condition." --Elysa Gardner, USA Today

"Indescribably brilliant... Something tells me that this odd, wonderful play is going to have a very long life, and that those who see the world premiere will gain bragging rights about being in on the ground floor of the creation of a modern American classic." --Joe Meyers, Connecticut Post

"Very funny... This play worms its way into the psyche. Eno subtly imprints on our consciousness not just a general awareness of our mortality but of the way dread pervades our daily routines, and how it instills in us a need for other people." --Don Aucoin, Boston Globe

"Eno is a master who has a unique voice of his generation of playwrights... a fascinating word fest that dazzles in the language of absurdist theater." --Frank Rizzo, Hartford Courant

"A thoughtful play that resonates with thematic richness and feeling... Questions of mortality, solitude, love, loss, humanity and the universe surface in sneaky ways that catch you off-guard in Eno's writing. What might sound to the casual listener like off-the-cuff glibness artfully veils an emotional depth of charge." --David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

About the Author

Will Eno is a Residency Five Fellow at the Signature Theatre in New York, which presented Title and Deed in 2012 and The Open House in 2014. Following an acclaimed run at Yale Repertory Theatre, his play The Realistic Joneses ran on Broadway in 2014, where it won a Drama Desk Award, was named USA Today's "Best Play on Broadway," topped the Guardian's 2014 list of best American plays, and was included in the New York Times' "Best Theater of 2014." The Open House won the 2014 Obie Award, the Lortel Award for Outstanding Play and a Drama Desk Award, and was included in both Time Out New York and Time magazine's Top Ten Plays of the Year. Title and Deed was on the New York Times and the New Yorker's Top Ten Plays of 2012. His play Gnit, an adaptation of Ibsen's Peer Gynt, premiered at Actors Theatre of Louisville in 2013. Middletown premiered at the Vineyard Theatre in New York City and subsequently at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago and at many other theaters and universities throughout the U.S. His internationally heralded play Thom Pain (based on nothing) was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. His many awards and honors include the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theatre Award, the Horton Foote Prize for Promising New Play, a Hellen Merrill Playwriting Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a fellowship at the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library, the first-ever Marian Seldes/Garson Kanin Fellowship by the Theater Hall of Fame, and an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship.