‘Etiquette,’ comedy set behind the scenes at a theater, cleverly explores stresses of modern life

JEFF RHODE

From left, Clark Carmichael, Laura Ekstrand, Daria M. Sullivan and Emaline Williams co-star in “Etiquette,” which is being presented by Vivid Stage at The Oakes Center in Summit through April 19.

The program of “Etiquette,” which Vivid Stage is currently presenting at The Oakes Center in Summit, identifies the time of the play’s action as September 2021. That is very specific, but there is a good reason for that. David Lee White’s comedy, which is premiering with this production, captures a moment in time that is still a vivid memory.

The plot revolves around a mid-sized theater company returning to live, in-theater productions now that the pandemic is less severe. White also builds in big modern issues such as cancel culture, fake news, internet trolls, pandemic era financial stress in the arts world, and a #MeToo scandal involving one of the theater’s past employees. If “Etiquette” seems a bit cluttered with topical issues … well, that’s kind of the point. Modern life often involves dealing with pressures that are coming at you from all angles, and trying to satisfy all kinds of people before you can start to think about yourself.

JEFF RHODE

Clark Carmichael and Emaline Williams in “Etiquette.”

At one point, one characters observes that another character, for the last year, has been “laugh-crying” every time she hears a text chime on her phone. She replies that this is because “for the past year, text chimes mean some new thing is wrong.”

“Etiquette,” directed here by Noreen Farley, seems a little aimless at times, as the conversation among its five characters meanders around topics that seem to be there just to allow White to deliver a clever line or two. But White does tie many of his narrative threads together quite neatly as the 80-minute, one-act play reaches its end.

The setting throughout the play is the theater’s Green Room, though the characters, crucially, are able to hear what is going on, in the theater, on a monitor, and check out the internet via their cellphones. It is opening night of “Midnight Cicadas,” which is said to be an American classic (the characters seem to regard it as akin to “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” or something like that). The theater opened with “Midnight Cicadas,” 50 years ago, and is doing it again to mark the anniversary, and to celebrate its reopening after only being able to do Zoom shows for the last year.

Lauren Ellis, a famous veteran actor, is starring in the play (she is played by Laura Ekstrand, Vivid Stage’s co-founder and artistic director). She is White’s most multi-dimensional character: a jaded, wise-cracking diva, but one who is firmly in touch with — and quite articulate about — why she continues to love the theater, and continues to put up with so much crap so she can keep doing it.

JEFF RHODE

Daria M. Sullivan with Laura Ekstrand in “Etiquette.”

Also in the Green Room are Keri (Emaline Williams), the theater’s high-strung, worry-plagued interim artistic director (its legendary longtime artistic director was forced out following the aforementioned #MeToo scandal); its narcissistic, shallow managing director Darius (Clark Carmichael); and Jess (Daria M. Sullivan), a younger staff member who does much of the day-to-day work and receives little credit, and not much money, for it.

Disaster strikes when Lauren sees an audience member, Trent (Jason Szamreta), using a cellphone, and berates the devices in general (she calls them as “engines of narcissism”) as well as Trent himself.

“What part of ‘turn off your phones’ was confusing for you?,” she snarls. “What part of ‘the use of recording devices is forbidden by law’ do you not understand?”

Lauren refuses to go on with the show, even though it has hardly even started, and the audience goes home.

Keri and Darius are crestfallen at first. But they turn ecstatic when another audience member who had been filming the whole thing on another cellphone shares the video online, and Lauren turns into hero — a viral sensation! — for standing up for old-fashioned etiquette. (That’s where the play’s title comes from.)

JEFF RHODE

Jason Szamreta with Laura Ekstrand in “Etiquette.”

But then things go wrong when it turns out Trent had been holding an assistive listening device, not a cellphone, and Lauren once again becomes the politically incorrect bad guy, preying on the hard-of-hearing. (The play’s biggest laughs come when Jess conveys the feeding frenzy of the online commentators, reading out loud what they are writing.)

Trent is found and summoned to the theater, so that he can be apologized to, and a video of that can be shared to the internet. But when he shows up, the plot takes another big, unforeseen turn.

White addresses a lot of weighty stuff in “Etiquette.” But he does so in a breezy, consistently humorous way. It’s an approach that is very much in keeping with something Lauren tells Keri and Darius when criticizing them for returning from the pandemic with a serious opus like “Midnight Cicadas,” instead of something more crowd-pleasing.

“Of course you should have chosen a comedy!” she says. “The audience has been at home thinking about horrible shit for two years! Then you want them to leave their comfy, disease-free homes to sit with hundreds of other people to think about more horrible shit?”

Vivid Stage will present “Etiquette” at The Oakes Center in Summit through April 19. Visit vividstage.org.

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