Happy Talk
by Jesse Eisenberg“Jesse Eisenberg has quietly established himself as an off-Broadway scribe.”—Lizzie Simon, Wall Street Journal
“Jesse Eisenberg has quietly established himself as an off-Broadway scribe.”—Lizzie Simon, Wall Street Journal
Lorraine is a saint of the suburbs. On top of trying to save her dying mother, misera-ble husband and estranged daughter, she’s starring as Bloody Mary in the Jewish Community Center production of South Pacific. When her mother’s home aide, Ser-bian immigrant Ljuba, asks for help finding a husband, Lorraine takes on her most challenging role to date: matchmaker. In Jesse Eisenberg’s hysterical and devastating play, Happy Talk, he reveals the absurd lengths people go to save themselves in the name of saving others.
“His clever, frantic dialogue assumes an irresistible authenticity.”—Ben Brantley, New York Times (NYT Critics’ Pick), on The Spoils
“Brutally funny and deeply moving.”—Huffington Post on The Spoils
“It says a lot about Eisenberg—his extreme decency and his extreme neurosis—that the avatars he’s created for the stage are sadder and less admirable than the sly, nebbishy parts he’s played in movies. But that’s always been the fascinating paradox of Eisenberg’s life, the source of his strange charisma.”—Boris Kachka, New York Magazine, on The Revisionist
“Eisenberg writes funny, but he is also a real storyteller—moody and dangerous and even loving.”—Newsday on The Spoils