Watching Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ The Comeuppance as directed by Morgan Green at Woolly Mammoth Theatre is like watching those startling gymnasts perform at the Olympics: the routine that the script lays out for performers is brilliant and the performances of that script are breathtaking. Death is a character in this play. Death takes an intense fascination with and appreciation of what the other characters are doing, how they’re doing it, and why. Death’s comment “I like to watch” brings to the audience’s attention that the lives of these people onstage — and by extension the lives of the people in the audience — and the quality of their performances of their lives are things that are worthy of our attention. Five members of a high school cohort who called themselves the Mixed-Ethnic Rejects Group, or MERG, have come together as a prelude to their 20th high school reunion. Like every play or movie involving a reunion, the participants fill each other in on their lives since they last met, noting fulfilled or abandoned aspirations, personal betrayals, grudges, and humiliations, including the varieties of systemic targeting and oppression delivered upon them daily. If you think The Big Chill crossed with The Boys in the Band, you’ll have a pretty accurate idea of the feeling of this show. Except for the presence of Death. From Death’s point of view, the reunion we’re watching is just one movement in the spontaneous artistic composition and performance of the score that is the characters’ entire lives. Scene from ‘The Comeuppance.’ Photo by Cameron Whitman Photography. In addition to watching, Death is periodically moved to comment. For example, speaking through one of the characters about the COVID pandemic times and the ways the characters (and the audience) lived through that time, Death makes the provocative and surprising observation that “I thought you were the best version of yourself.” From Death’s point of view, this is a marvelous party: Emilio (Jordan Below) is a successful expatriate artist. His upcoming installation at the (Whitney?) Biennial has allowed for his attendance at this reunion. His high school girlfriend was Kristina and, we find out later, he more than once accompanied Katelyn, another group member, to an abortion clinic. Ursula (Alana Raquel Bowers) is a diabetic whose grandmother recently died and who is losing her eyesight. The gathering is taking place at her house. Kristina (Taysha Marie Canales) was Emilio’s girlfriend during high school and is now an overworked military physician with five children. Francisco, nicknamed Paco (Jaime Maseda), is a cousin to Kristina but peripheral to the group. A veteran of two tours of duty in Iraq, he now experiences recurrent PTSD. Katelyn (Sarah Gliko) was Paco’s girlfriend during high school. She is now a stepmother and married to a participant in the January 6 coup attempt. Scenes from ‘The Comeuppance.’ Photos by Cameron Whitman Photography. All these actors are brilliant in their roles: the energy of their performances and the specificity of their choices garner respect. But Emilio is the most mysterious character. He has resisted attending these reunions for years. And despite his artistic flamboyance, he remains the most invisible, least understood, therefore most desired character. And Jordan Below plays this role to the hilt. I assume that Jacobs-Jenkins did not frivolously name the high school group Mixed-Ethnic Rejects Group. It is thought-provoking (and to some extent a relief) that the original “mixed ethnic” identification that continues to bind this crew of high-achieving misfits together is not spotlighted and dissected centerstage as part of the play. Instead, this circumstance is just stated in the name of the group. The balancing of social exclusion with social preference that inescapably goes along with being identified as “mixed ethnic” in a world underpinned by whiteness — the balancing act that necessitated the forming of the group in the first place — continues to shape their adult lives. Race/ethnicity pervades the bodies, psyches, and lives of these people as much as the more overtly and frequently heard-from Death does. And yet Jacobs-Jenkins doesn’t mention it. Except maybe in this way: the dark-skinned Ursula, whose grandmother died of cancer, is herself struggling with diabetes; the two Latinx military cousins both made careers in the military; the palest mixed-ethnic person is married — with stepchildren — to a (presumably white) MAGA enthusiast, and the most visibly mixed-ethnic person (visibly biracial in this production, anyway) is an expatriate artist living in Europe. Maybe the existence of these situations is all that needs to be said. And maybe we can meditate on what that means. In a shift from the naturalistic design that was explored in the play’s previous mounting, the production design here is abstract (scenic designer: Jian Jiung): a neutral, almost blackbox presentation with layers of black streamers hanging from the ceiling, acting as “walls” dividing the space into “rooms” and serving as entrances and exits to other domains. These “walls” also allow for hands to be waved through them at emotional moments and for people to walk through them in order to move from one room to another. The architecture of those rooms is mysterious and spooky. With this neutral abstract representation, the appearance of Death is not in competition with the “realistic” portrayal of the characters onstage. Instead, just as in real life, Death becomes an acceptable reality of the characters’ world, even if they themselves are blissfully or adamantly unaware of it. The form that Jacobs-Jenkins is exploring in The Comeuppance is called danse macabre. The danse macabre became very popular in the wake of the multiple, successive traumas that Europe experienced beginning in the 1300s. That period has some similarities to today, when we — the world (and the U.S. specifically) — have been living in a state of unacknowledged and largely unaddressed trauma and grief for a very long time. If The Comeuppance is not exactly comforting, it does offer what a New York Stage Review of the play calls “abundant sympathy,” both among the characters portrayed onstage and as a suggestion that this sympathy is something we audience members deserve as well. It is that sympathy that shows up in the final scene of this show that I was most moved by. Emilio undertakes to show Ursula how his Biennial submission, a sound installation, works. He explains that as long as she can hear the signal his machine sends out, she’s still alive. Then he begins to adjust the controls on the device. The Comeuppance can be thought of as an essay on the bumpy road that compassion will have to take in the 21st century. (Or maybe how bumpy that road has always been.) It may be that The Comeuppance is encouraging us to consider taking that bumpy road: to be curious about each other, to take note of each other, and to prepare ourselves to welcome our mortality rather than to fear it. What comfort the show does offer is eminently embraceable, and I urge you to do so at your earliest convenience. Running Time: Two hours and 20 minutes, with no intermission. The Comeuppance (presented by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company as a co-production with The Wilma Theater) plays through October 6, 2024, at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, 641 D St NW, Washington, DC. Tickets ($56–$71, with discounts available) can be purchased online, by phone at 202-393-3939 (Wednesday–Sunday, 12:00–6:00 p.m.), by email ([email protected]), or in person at the Sales Office at 641 D Street NW, Washington, DC (Wednesday–Sunday, 12:00–6:00 p.m.). The program for The Comeuppance is online here. COVID Safety: Masks are optional in all public spaces at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Woolly’s full safety policy is available here. SEE ALSO: ‘The Comeuppance’ comes home to DC at Woolly Mammoth (news story, September 5, 2024)