Varied ‘Truths’ Clash in Zoetic Stage’s The Comeuppance

The bond among friends begins to deteriorate in examination at a 20th high school pre-reunion in Zoetic Stage’s The Comeuppance. )Photos by Morgan Sofia Photography)

By Bill Hirschman

Time, carrying the inevitability of mortality and exposing complex truths about our past, is the central vendor of the title in Zoetic Stage’s overwhelming The Comeuppance.

This dense drama seasoned with dry humor depicts five classmates at a 20^th high school “pre-reunion” in which naturalistic banter is interspersed with a physicalized Death philosophizing to the audience Truths about the present we see, the past that forged it and even the future.

This may sound off-putting or difficult to buy, but consummate director Stuart Meltzer, his virtuoso cast and the incisive script by this winter’s Pulitzer winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins deliver a convincing evening of theatricality and thought.

A half-dozen forces are simultaneously interacting, distancing, contradicting, illuminating, exposing, and endorsing the newly-middle-agers’ memories at cross purposes. Sometimes the emotional tenor is genial swirling eddies, sometimes a cauldron of molten fury.

Granted, the journey seems a tad long at more than two hours – no fault of the committed artists here – due to Jacobs-Jenkins having created such an infinite lattice of relationships and ever-emerging visions of them. It’s pretty difficult to follow who had liaisons with who, what those were, what they had wanted them to be and what they are now. You long for a road map.

Haunted by the revealed pasts, we learn layer under layer under layer of all that as these brethren perceived them.

A key curator of the evening is that physical appearances of Death or Fate or whatever. It is not some vision in a hooded black gown, but a cynical, witty, sarcastic confidant popping in. And here’s the genius in the writing, directing and acting: It appears every 30 minutes or so embodied in the physical guise of one of the five characters. Each actor (and character) abandons their individual façade to inhabit the identical unnerving omniscient persona.

Again, this may sound ludicrously impossible to pull off and in theory another theater might not overcome an audience’s incredulity, but Zoetic’s entire company down to the eerie lighting and echoing sound nails it with complete credibility and insight.

Set in a Maryland suburb, the five are awash in nostalgia revisiting their former bond as outsiders in a Catholic school as the self-styled Multi-Ethnic Reject Group or MERGE memorialized in their chanting tonight “submerge.”

Joline Mujica and Mallory Newbrough

The party is being held on the Time-ravaged porch of the dowdy empathetic Ursula (Joline Mujica), who mostly cared for her now late grandmother and who recently lost an eye, now covered by a black patch. She does not plan to join the formal hotel-based reunion, but she has invited the others to meet for a pre-party.

Arriving first is Emilio (Jovon Jacobs), a suave smooth and congenial artist who has lived in Germany for more than a decade and whose work as a sound sculptor is about to open in New York. He hasn’t seen these folks since a wedding 15 years ago.  Emilio and Ursula’s reminiscing is joined by the appearance of Caitlin (Mallory Newbrough), a lovely suburbanite in a red cocktail dress with two children in college but who comes without her husband.

A late arrival is Kristina (Amy Lee Gonzalez), a doctor who has seen a good deal of death professionally and has five children.

Accompanying her is Francisco (Rayner Gabriel), a year younger and not technically part of the central group. He drunkenly invades like an out-of-control freight train, but who is coping with several kinds of damage after serving in Iraq.

Jovon Jacobs

Fueled by considerable jungle juice and pot, their always energetic interactions trigger each other with past references and relationships.  They may talk about Facebook and Instagram and COVID, but Time is in their DNA with mordant mention of Columbine and 9/11.

The frank give and take encompasses unsettled personal debts, sexual identities, sexuality, plus sex and violence. There is a short strange stretch in which three recreate a mime that they toyed with as students  in which they pretended to viciously stab each other, bite legs and cut each other’s throats.

 One moment, someone is showing off baby pictures, another moment someone says, “I just feel dimmer and lost.”

But as the evening progresses, it becomes clear under their cross-examinations that each life has made a sharp turn left, right or U-turn over the two decades. No one is quite who we the audience met in the opening – or even who each other thought they were. We and they question whether their bond is or continues to be as close as they recall.

And of course, Death’s presence means that everyone and every relationship is foreordained throughout the life you see.

Every superb actor solidly melds into this ensemble piece, but they create distinct characterizations which must reveal emotionally diverse facets as the evening continues. Again, this is especially laudable as they each have a diva aria as Death.

Special mention is due Jovon Jacobs who has posted an enviable career, blessing Florida audiences with roles in Raisin in the Sun, Topdog/Underdog, Intimate Apparel and many more. His complex Emilio holds much of the passage together.

The persistent challenge is the tale seems to go on about 20 minutes too long. The applause greeting one blackout on opening night indicated that the audience thought it was over a good 15 minutes before it was. Not that it wasn’t engaging throughout, but its complex density wore people down Well, hey, Hamlet is five acts over four hours.

Fortunately, Meltzer’s impeccable direction is intentionally swift. His players circle through and around Ursula’s front yard as if were a maze, perhaps leaping atop a tree stump or a table. His detailed direction of the content helped the cast keep from making things any more confusing than Jacobs-Jenkins created.

As far what precisely is the theme, you can decide for yourself or pick out one of several possibles. It seems to endorse relishing the present preferably with love and friendship, since the ultimate finale is inescapable. And it seems to say no one can escape the consequences of the past, thus the play’s title.

The production is gifted with the talents of stage manager Vanessa McCloskey, sound designer Haydn Diaz and lighting designer Leonardo Urbina. Ursula’s house exterior and yard exude Time having infected each molecule thanks to scenic designer Michael McClain and prop dresser Shannon Veguilla who add touches like the wheelchair and walker that Ursula’s late grandmother used.

A nod to Kalen Edean providing the phone voice of Simon who did not make the party in person.

Jacobs-Jenkins’ work has been and continues to be part of the South Florida theater scene, starting with Area Stage’s An Octoroon in 2017,  GableStage’s Gloria in 2018 and Appropriate last February. He just won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association award for Purpose, which has been nominated this spring for a Tony Award.

Warning: The running time is two hours and ten minutes without intermission. Therefore, trust us, visit the facilities beforehand and go easy on the pre-show liquid intake.

The Comeuppance from Zoetic Stage plays through May 25 at the Carnival Studio at the Adrienne Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. Performances 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $66-$72. Visit https://www.arshtcenter.org/tickets/2024-2025/theater-up-close/the-comeuppance