Eureka Day starts off in the familiar territory of the culture wars and lobs a hand-grenade at the liberal left in its venomous satire on language and all that it apparently conceals. The grenade comes in bright, primary colours as a gang of progressive California parents gather in a school classroom to speak in ludicrously over-the-top homilies about offence, and empowerment.
But beneath its broadsides, Jonathan Spector’s 2018 play has a serious-minded core which grapples with the organisation of power and the masking of privilege in groups. This emergency meeting has been called to discuss an outbreak of mumps and the plot drives towards a clash over the MMR vaccine which, while being dated, captures many of the complications around debates on the Covid vaccination, from fear of misinformation to conspiracy theory and distrust of science.
