Review: In ‘The Underlying Chris,’ You Are Who You Were

I love that Will Eno upends theatrical conventions; I see it as an invitation to reexamine my expectations. What's one of the the most cherished convention in theatre? Characters who "develop" in ways that make me assured that I understand their personality and psychology, and to whom I can connect. And Eno messes with that. I couldn't assume I knew Chris, what made her/him tick. Who was this now? What persists and what changes in who we are? Isn't the concept of "development" too tidy? And what do we mean when we try to identify someone's essence? This is an EveryPerson play. Life on the way to death isn't new territory, but, to me, the play invited my curiosity and, overall, I appreciated Eno's shift of perspective.

My friends and I all hated this play. Three of the four of us had trouble even staying awake. The acting was very uneven, from the truly terrible Isabella Russo to the excellent Lizbeth Mackay. There's no plot, just the gimmick. No character development. Short scenes. Just when you start to get interested, as when the girl version of Chris is abandoned at a hospital, the scene changes. And the "deep thoughts" in the second half are trite. What a disappointment after seeing some really excellent productions from Second Stage recently.

I'm disappointed that I relied on this review, especially the fact that it was a Critic's Pick, as a reason to see this play. I would have been so much happier with a night at home, watching something great on TV. The structure of this play was slightly interesting, but not necessarily challenging to follow. In fact, I think the structure significantly impeded any actual character development. These snippets of Chris, in all their various forms, never gelled to create a fully-formed person. They seemed more gimmicky than anything else by the end. The snarky dialogue was especially annoying when delivered by a character that was never developed - they just made the deliverer of the lines seem not very nice. I never found it funny or clever, just off-putting. Denise Burse and Charles Turner did finally bring some depth to Chris, and it was the first time I actually started to like the character, but it was too late at that point. I was grateful when the play ended, but also frustrated that it never went anywhere.

Thanks for your intelligent comments, contributors. The play is too far away and over too soon for me to partake, so as someone interested in Eno's work, you all filled the void for me. Additional bonus: one of you shares my first name, and another flaunts my own initials. I seize small pleasures wheresoe'er they may be found. :-)

This was 85 long minutes. Entirely too much work trying to make sense of this play, and I didn't.

turning 70 soon. My brother taunted me w Chrissy, my mother admonished me as Christopher and my boss called me Topher. Maybe I need to see it.

Plays like this always bring to mind The Emperor's New Clothes. Reviews like this always make me think the reviewer is trying hard to be the emperor's apologist.

I had no trouble following the various manifestations of Chris and it became sort of like a little game to figure out which actor was Chris now. But I never made any emotional connection to the play. It was an interesting experiment and worth spending 85 minutes watching, but I’m surprised it’s a critics pick.

I found this to be very similar to Mary Page Marlowe - a play that took us through the journey of a woman at various phases of her life. While I enjoyed learning about the life of Chris, sharing the path along the way, Although I found the premise very gimmicky, I feel like a left the theater with the message that although we may be very different people, we are similar in many, many ways.

"but also in part because Eno, seemingly having completed his structural work, has begun to pay more attention to character. " Eno is always challenging or obtuse and if it takes until the play's mid-point before he pays more attention to character—what generally is a critical foundation of a play's success—this is a hard pass for me.

While I've never been a fan of Eno's hermetically sealed, self-conscious plays, Green's lovely summation almost makes me want to see this piece. Almost: "Just when we get to love it too much, when we finally see how connected we’ve been to everyone else all along, we have to start saying goodbye."

I had a very different experience at this play. While it was a pleasant enough way to spend 90 minutes, I found it little more than a clever gimmick. If anything, the actual act of seeing multiple actors as the same character, adds facets that are cute but meaningless in character or story development. And I am in no way resistant to emotion in the arts, but the mere fact of showing a green scenic element at the end is somewhat manipulative in no way tipped the scales for me. And one more thing: am I the only one is entirely put off by director Kenny Leon's habit of putting sappy songs at the end of his plays? It bothered me here almost as much as at the end of his revival of Children of a Lesser God a little while back.