Phillyist Reviews Reinventing Eden

InterAct Theatre Company's Reinventing Eden presents us with an interesting question: if you could predetermine that your child would be born with a developmental disorder, how far would you go to prevent it?

The show centers around the Tuttle family: Jonas, the father and groundbreaking scientist; Lizzie, the mother; Paul, the oldest son, born with an autism-like syndrome; and Jason, the younger son who, despite having quite the temper, seems mostly normal. As the play begins, Jason is returning home from a Peace Corps-like position in order to attend a special awards ceremony that will honor his father's achievements in the scientific field. Unfortunately, there is also an investigation centered around Jonas, to determine whether he facilitated any unethical human experiments twenty-six years ago. And conveniently enough, Jason is about twenty-six. Reinventing Eden also tells the story of Boris, a mid-century Russian ice fisherman, who, we learn halfway through Act One, is Jonas's grandfather. Boris remains onstage through the entire play (and intermission), and the focus shifts between his monologues and the Tuttles. Also playing an important role are Corey, a former coworker of Jonas's, who is now leading the FDA investigation against Jonas, and Robert, the owner of the lab Jonas has been working at.

In all, I found the play interesting and enjoyable. But the world-premiere script, written by InterAct's Producing Artistic Director, Seth Rozin, would have benefited from a more critical eye before its production. Robert and Jonas had a running gag about knocking (or not knocking) on doors that was surely meant to elicit laughter, but got tired quickly, and some of the play's dialogue felt overwrought or over-political. The not-yet-perfect script wasn't aided by Tim Moyer, the actor playing Jonas, who kept stumbling over or obviously forgetting his lines, or by Seth Reichgott, who played the "young" Robert with a good deal of energy (despite the door jokes), but who came onstage toward the end of Act Two, twenty-six years older and completely flat. I actually checked my program to see if young and old Robert were played by different actors. This would usually mean that an actor successfully tricked the audience into thinking he'd aged -- but in this case, I wondered if Robert hadn't perhaps had a stroke (or a personality transplant) in the two and a half decades since we'd seen him last.