“We’re heads now. We talk in windows,” cries one of two nameless characters in Bill Irwin’s touching, ten-minute play In-Zoom, presented by the Old Globe Theater of San Diego. The cry of frustration sums up our current lockdown status. This short two-hander addresses our lack of connection and the attempt to reach each other, literally breaking the barrier of cyberspace.
The premise is simplicity itself and like a Samuel Beckett playlet, In-Zoom captures the comic and tragic conundrum of daily life.
This is the second major play written specifically for the Zoom platform—Richard Nelson’s What Do We Need to Talk About? being the first. One older man (Irwin) reaches out to a younger one (Christopher Fitzgerald) in the time of Coronavirus to read inspirational passages from the Bible. They bicker, debate the merits and drawbacks of the technological means of communication, and discover they can reach each other in new ways. Employing his elastic limbs Irwin appears to extend his hands into Fitzgerald’s frame and vice versa. They suspend their features simulating a freeze frame and speed up and slow down their speeches. During the world-premiere viewing, there was an ironic stoppage of the action, so it was impossible to tell if the actors or my computer were freezing.
In the short running time, the pair run the gamut from clownish antics to world-weary despair to a genuine bond as they recite the benedictions. “Maybe you can come over,” Fitzgerald asks Irwin as they’re about to sign off. But then both realize that’s not possible and the look of sorrow on their faces is shattering.
This brief encapsulation of how we are living now is only available on the Old Globe’s website for a shockingly short time—perhaps because of union issues, perhaps to recreate the sense of urgency and immediacy theater brings.
