Matthew Gasda Casts his Eyes on ZOOMERS
Review of ZOOMERS at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research
“Make friends with the person sitting next to you. It’s like church,” playwright and director Matthew Gasda jokingly announces to the audience at his new play Zoomers at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research, trying to stall for time while he and the production team search for the phone that helps run the lights. Eventually, someone finds the phone under a blanket on the couch, and Gasda and the audience settle in to watch the play. While looking around at the set designed by Ava Ravich, you will also find a bong, a Seinfeld poster with the quote “Serenity Now,” and a TV ready for a round of Super Smash Bros. They act like windows into our contemporary era. Let's keep looking.
In a Bushwick apartment of early 20-somethings Jacob (Henry Lynch), Michael (Adian Benmalek in the role usually played by Jonah O’Hara David), and Jada (Rene Nicole Powell), a thrilling round of Super Smash Bros plays on after Michael has just revealed his same-sex hookup with Jada’s best friend Paul (Tamir Baldwin) the night before. Jada and Jacob play off the revelation, but Michael is unsure if “no one cares who you have sex with.” Throughout the play, Michael constantly searches for and questions where he stands on the sexual spectrum. He says his biggest flaw is being conflict-avoidant, which might be why he can’t figure out his sexuality. He’s known as a player on the dating scene. Benmalek presents a cool, casual persona for Michael, which serves the character’s sexual decadence well.
Paul is obsessed with Michael. He can’t contain himself with how much he wants Michael so much that he asks Jada to slap him, which is hilarious. Baldwin’s flamboyancy bursts from the stage through big gestures. He is an absolute delight. One of the best lines from the play comes from Paul when he asks Jada, “Is monogamy so out that it's kinky?” The sexual revolution has bequeathed young people various sexual masks to choose from. In Zoomers, Gasda identifies the absurdities of Gen Z’s dating life but sees a pain at its core. When Michael confesses that he doesn’t see himself with men long-term, Paul puts on a subdued and nonchalant mask, only to remove it and reveal his actual aching as he exits.
Gasda isn’t just contemplating the sexual revolution– he’s also examining a “stuck” culture, personified by Jacob. When we see him on a date with Finley (Callan Shattuck), he says, “I'd like to go back to like, age 11, actually. That was a great time—little league. Straight A's. Parents drove me everywhere. Smash Brothers and Mario Kart after school with my young broskies.... Do you like Super Smash Bros?” Hitting the bong and Super Smash Bros is a safe retreat for him, but there is no going back. He calls Finley’s personality “watery.” She notes that there are reasons for it. But Jacob refuses to dig deeper for fear of what he might find. Lynch imbues Jacob with subdued child-like qualities, which conveys how culturally normal it is. Jacob is also “stuck” on his on-again, off-again girlfriend Sarah (Meg Spectre). Jacob’s arrested development won’t allow him to be what Sarah wants him to be; he assumes a fetal position after Sarah leaves him.
Jada has been unemployed for a year and is contemplating putting her goals on pause and leaving New York but at the detriment of letting her idealized self down. At the beginning of the play, she reveals she’s taking a new medicine that she’ll have to be on for the rest of her life. She feels “anonymous in an anonymous city.” Her dreams are practically guiding her out of the city. She dreams of being an astronaut, dying of eye cancer, or being forced back into her mother’s womb by her father. There is something uncanny about Jada, and Powell captures it in her performance, which makes me wish we could spend more time with Jada before she leaves the city. A return to nature is a recurring theme in many of Gasda’s plays, and Zoomers follows this pattern. His plays remind us of the great power nature has over our lives.
Taking over Jada’s part of the lease, Ella (Sophia Englesberg) moves in. She’s in an open relationship with Mark (George Olesky), a self-described “geriatric millennial” architect. The two have an age gap; Ella is in her early 20s, and Mark is in his 30s. Mark’s friends have even confronted Ella about it. But here, Gasda is exploring the very nature of freedom and love. Who determines these arbitrary rules between consenting adults? Is this another sign of a culture that won’t grow up and deal with the nature of sex? Englesberg and Olesky build a loving relationship dynamic on stage, which makes these vulnerable couple moments warm to witness. Mark admits his fears about Ella leaving him and the personal inadequacies he believes he possesses, but they open themselves to the risks of freedom and partnership as “equals.”
There is an interesting moment of staging when Ella walks in watching a Sex and the City episode from 2000– “Hot Child in the City.” She sets her laptop on the couch, the screen facing towards us, while she grabs something from the kitchen, and instead of pausing it, she lets it play. In the episode, Carrie dates a man who still lives with his parents, Samantha represents a Bar Mitzvah for a wealthy 13-year-old, and Miranda is wearing dental braces. Then, Carrie Bradshaw asks, “In today’s youth-obsessed culture, are the women of my generation growing into mature, responsible adults, or are we 34 going on 13?” We may think this cultural moment we find ourselves in is unique, but regression haunts many generations; thus, Gasda has united all of us in our humanity.
Zoomers is running at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research through October 15th. Buy tickets here.