Many themes in Happyness (The Wrecking Ball) can be found just outside its performance hall doors. Sidewalk-blocking tents, hundred-dollar dinners, visible homelessness, and blooming high-rise luxury condominiums are all part of the backdrop for playwright Carol Triffle’s engaging new work, currently being staged at the venue she and Jerry Mouawad co-founded, Imago Theatre.
Happyness is absurdist in its delivery, but its subject matter is reflective of our time. Its characters ponder questions we all ask: How do I live when things are collapsing all around me? How can I sustain friendships and family? Do I need a gun?
Making the fantastical action, narrative arc, and character development all cohabit 85 minutes is no small task. Furthermore, Imago’s staging and set design make superb use of the theater’s small space, which we’ve also consistently seen at the company's recent productions of Streetcar Named Desire and Salome.
The play opens with its main characters—Danny (Laura Loy), Anny (Anne Sorce), and Jason (Kyle Delamarter)—staring at the audience from a single cluttered room that they all share. The chaos of beds, blankets, rickety furniture, and other detritus in the dimly-lit space suggests that they live on the margins, in an ancient apartment, or even a squat.
What they have are each other, and the three look out for one another, functioning as a tight-knit found family. This family has a curious fourth member—Zeno, a small hand-puppet who lives under a blanket, in a pocket, or on the street, depending on who he is with.
The group’s tenuous balance is upended when a city notice orders them to move out. In the words of Anny, reading a note: “The wrecking ball is demolishing your neighborhood real soon!” Soon after, we hear (and feel) the thundering demolition already underway.
Each character responds differently. Danny is consumed by terror of the outside world, both present and future. “I’m just trying to live,” she says, “and then everything starts to collapse.” She regrets missed opportunities, even as Anny reminds her that to do those things would have involved leaving the house.
During one pivotal scene she pleads with Anny to bring her a gun, saying: “I can’t leave. I want to die here, lay down in front of the bulldozers if I have to. If I had a gun, I could defend our home. Please. It might be our last stand. Please, please get me a gun.”
Anny, predictably, demurs, yet Danny’s incandescent, fearful rage returns more and more, threatening to explode. For her part, Anny decides to seek the city council, pondering: “How could they take away our home, where you were born? Everyone needs a place to live and die in.”
Jason and Zeno (the puppet) are either performing sidewalk shows in a Mad Max apocalyptic landscape, or they went to see a movie. In Jason’s view, store shelves are stripped and strangers fight for food. While he may be the most demonstrably unhinged character, Jason is also the most engaged with the world’s dark surroundings.
There’s also no shortage of social commentary at play in Happyness, but it isn't polemic. Triffle draws strong characters to populate her crazed world. This inventive and unconventional play, with one 10-inch tall character made of cloth, is well worth seeing.
Happyness (The Wrecking Ball) plays at Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th, through Sat May 31, $30, tickets and showtimes at imago.com
