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The Metaphysics of Breakfast

nytheatre.com review by Eric Beckson
August 15, 2005

Five college students act in writer/director/student Eliza Clark’s problematic play The Metaphysics of Breakfast, which is about April, a young woman who returns to her parents’ home and sinks into a depression after her husband is killed in a car accident.April’s memories are acted out until she freezes the action by holding up her hands, as if to say, "cut." She then speaks to the audience until the next vignette. The repeated use of this unsubtle device is jarring. Once or twice may be appropriate (to halt an argument, for example). But consistently cutting the action this way spoils many transitional opportunities.The one set is the kitchen table, cluttered with boxes of cereal and other breakfast items. Strangely, throughout the one hour drama, April barely mentions her deceased husband. We await some clarification (a dark secret or traumatic memory perhaps). Instead, most of what we learn is about her parents.Dad, a professor who teaches feminism at Yale, speaks in a stilted mid-Atlantic accent. As April recalls, “God is dead. My father killed him when I was young.” Dad tells April that “Jesus was a very, very nice person.” Another memory shows Dad explaining to April how the colonists were never really friendly with Native Americans, contrary to the implication of Thanksgiving.Mom, a high energy woman who enjoys figure skating, is curiously in love with her pedantic bore of a husband. In a well-choreographed pantomime sequence, Mom and Dad lasciviously figure skate together to give young April a metaphorical education of sex. The close parental relationship is evident in Mom’s remark, “Sleep is always better in someone else’s arms.” Mom and Dad do not try to hide their lively sexual relationship from April. No matter, declares April. “Home is where you’d rather be than anywhere else—even someplace exotic.”April shares these other insights: “Life is like breakfast. It happens every day.” “We get two homes in a lifetime—the one you are given and the one you make.” “If we could change one thing about the way we are, I’m not sure we would. We all secretly love ourselves too much.”Stefano Theodoli-Braschi (Dad), has little latitude with his cliche character, but remains lively in a Niles Crane sort of way. Jana Sidkar (Mom) is convincing as the daft mother offering homespun homilies. Sidkar appears very much at ease on stage. Chad Callaghan and Lila Neugebauer, playing many roles, adequately provide comic relief in their pantomime and curt utterances. They use many effective, simple costumes and props.It is a challenge to portray a depressed woman, as April clearly is, but Tara Rodman’s monotonous tone and dour facial expression make the hour pass very slowly. Contributing to the play’s leaden quality is the lack of premise and character development, and a plot that is mostly a collection of mundane childhood memories.There is an aching sense of suppressed reality in this drama. While April dotes on her parents, they seem far more wrapped up in their pursuits and each other. One can imagine that April’s depression was only triggered by the traumatic loss of her husband, and in truth has a deeper well. The unintended or hidden story here is one of denial and emotional immaturity. Since there is no resolution or character development, it’s fair to say that it’s unrealized by the playwright. As a result, what we have is a therapy session, not a drama.