Too PC for their own good?
Just back from a preview of Eureka Day at The Old Vic - set in 21st Century USA pre-Covid and a private primary school – with a very PC, agonisingly PC school council, the head an old hippie (and former part-time music teacher), the Chair of Governors (in effect) a formidable woman (an excellent Helen Hunt) who hides that well but not completely.
The first scene sets them up as they, well ‘debate would be too strong a word suggesting that they have disagreements, when what they wish to do is just reach consensus’ – the right selection of descriptions for the ‘race’ part of their parental application page – a clearly pointless exercise when their community is hardly a very mixed one – but it satisfies their urge for social justice.
But then there is an outbreak of mumps and suddenly the whole vaccine debate – and more – explodes in their faces and their emollient processes turn very sour. There is a (chokingly funny) Zoom discussion with the school community where the parental comments page scrolling down the cyc screen gets increasingly obsessive and trollish (difficult for the actors as it is the scrolling comments which are getting the laughs, which they have to act through as if oblivious) which closes the first act.
In the second act, which is still both satirical and funny, the narrative arc picks up on how the school community, with very different approaches to vaccination, begins to implode, and suggests that every view may not have an equal validity, and that consensus is not always either achievable or desirable.
This is a satire, and a good one, which does ask, as satires should, searching questions of us and our attitudes. Although Hunt is the box-office ‘star’ this is a strong ensemble piece, with good, and plausible acting throughout. The single set is a primary classroom, creating a strong milieu for the action. Well worth seeing, I believe, and very enjoyable.