I think that a good place to start this post is when a good third of the class and I were standing in the rain waiting for the Q64 to finally show up. Somebody (I think Aisha) asked what the play was even about, and nobody had a clue, so Alyssa looked it up and produced that enthralling description she mentioned in her post. Seriously, Jesse—Asuncion needs better PR people, because while the description was mundane at best, the play was anything but. The last time a play made me laugh so hard was when I saw Spamalot three years ago, and I would say Asuncion ranks right up there as one of my favorite plays I’ve ever seen.
I know we’ve all said it, but Jesse Eisenberg is seriously awesome. I’ve never seen Zombieland, so I only know him as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. Whereas Zuckerberg was kind of a pompous scumbag, Edgar was pretty much the opposite—an overly excited loser who is pretty delusional when it comes to his coolness. I can’t believe that somehow, in between shooting The Social Network and then attending a bunch of awards shows, he managed to write his own play and then star in it. Meeting Jesse, however briefly, showed me that he’s definitely more like Edgar than Zuckerberg—he thanked me for liking the play, took a picture with Kayde and me, and after a couple more pictures rode off on his bike down Diagon Alley! How adorable!
What I really liked about Asuncion was that I thought it was so well-rounded. I spent pretty much the whole intermission checking out the set, which had a bunch of awesome little details that really made it feel like two stoner bachelors lived there—crates for tables, sink overflowing with dishes, huge record collection, Christmas lights wrapped around a pole in May, etc. It was a lot more intricate than, say, the Bald Soprano set, and the theater was small enough that everyone could see and appreciate the work put into it (if all of that was on a Broadway set, good luck trying to see the box of Pop-tarts from the nosebleeds).
So in addition to the side-splitting comedy and the intricate set, we also had a story going on. While things definitely got a little crazy at times (which I think was probably intentional), I felt that it was easy to get the “message” of the play—things aren’t always what they seem to be. I definitely think that it’s easy to get caught up in assumptions that can pretty quickly spiral out of control—I think Marcus Gee would agree with Edgar that after a while, you can convince yourself of things without actually knowing much of anything. So while I think that Jesse (notice I’ve deluded myself into thinking we’re on a first name basis?) definitely wanted us to consider the consequences of the sweeping assumptions we make in our daily lives, I think he also probably wanted to show us that pride plays a huge role in it as well. Edgar was too proud to admit that his assumptions about Asuncion were getting more and more farfetched by the day, because he was getting so caught up in his “research” and how it was going to benefit himself. So with that point, I think the play was a success because it showed how pride and assumptions can totally delude a person and quickly cause a situation to get out of hand. But I can’t stress it enough that this is in no way like my new friendship with Jesse—we have a deep bond that only two people who have met once can share, and I wouldn’t be surprised if our meeting becomes the basis for his next great play. No delusions there, folks—just cold, hard facts.
