The strange-but-true story of Dr. Thomas Stoltz Harvey—a New Jersey pathologist who performed the autopsy on Albert Einstein in 1955 and absconded with the famed physicist’s cerebrum in order to uncover the secret of Einstein’s genius—would seem to be enough content to drive a hundred-minute-long play. But in his 2014 work, “Incognito,” now making its Chicago debut thanks to the spanking new Tin Drum Theatre, British playwright Nick Payne weaves the Svengoolie-like tale of Einstein’s brain together with eight or ten (I lost count) additional plots and subplots, some but not all of which relate to each other.
The play’s press release refers to this tangled web of incidents as “innovative storytelling.” But it’s really the old kitchen-sink school of dramaturgy, in which the playwright throws in another new wrinkle whenever the show loses steam, in the hope that the spiraling complexity will distract viewers from the script’s lack of character arc and satisfying resolution.
Still, for all its dramatic deficits, the production kept my interest, thanks to a gifted, well-chosen cast of four, each of whom plays between four and six characters. The actors shift between parts with fluidity and ease, and with a minimum of confusion for the audience. It’s a tribute both to their own acting chops and the strong guidance of director (and Tin Drum artistic director) Jason Palmer, who divides the small, bare Theater Wit stage into distinct zones of action and imparts a pleasing energy and rhythm to the play’s short, mostly static, and frequently and purposefully repetitive episodes.
These involve the previously mentioned Dr. Harvey (Teddy Boone), who wasted his life in a misguided attempt to locate Einstein’s intellect in the formaldehyde-saturated gray cells that he kept in his closet; Martha (Shannon Leigh Webber), a fictitious contemporary London neuropsychologist who manages to keep herself together at work, but is a hot mess in her relationship with her love interest, Patricia (Erin Alys); and Henry Maison (Riles August Holiday—portrayed as English in the play but based on a real-life American named Henry Molaison), who after undergoing brain surgery to control his epileptic fits lost the ability to form new memories and spent the rest of his “Groundhog Day”-like existence in an eternal, recurrent present. The show’s many additional characters play subsidiary roles in these three major characters’ lives, which in the case of Dr. Harvey and Henry Maison stretch on for many decades, requiring some well-executed aging on the part of the performers. And I would be remiss not to mention the strong trans-Atlantic accent work, aided by dialect coach Erin Annarella.
The action takes place under a large, shapeless cushion attached to the ceiling that periodically pulses and buzzes. It’s a giant stuffed neuron, which casts a painted, blob-like white shadow on the black floor beneath. Both playful and sinister, the ganglionic prop haunts the production, reminding us of the play’s theme, which is that the fallible, injury-prone, unknowable brain rules over us, negating our naive belief in will, personality and identity.
“It’s liberating,” exclaims the uptight, alcoholic Martha to a skeptical Patricia about her amnesiac patients, whom she claims enjoy the “freedom to be whoever they want to be.” Continues Martha, “The brain works overtime to deliver the illusion we’re in control, but we’re not… there’s no me, no you, no self… the brain is just a storytelling machine.”
Martha’s contention strikes this critic as (possibly intentional) bollocks, as the play’s British characters would say. To lose one’s personal chronology and sense of an integrated self is more hellish than liberating, as any visit to the dementia ward of a nursing home confirms. While we all experience the occasional brain flicker and glitch, most of us retain a relatively stable sense of meaning, purpose, aspiration—as did playwright Payne during the process of creating this elaborately plotted work.
The play’s thesis may be dubious, but it’s conveyed with panache by the well-matched, mutually responsive ensemble, which somehow manages to get more out of the script than the writer has put in. An example is Boone’s sensitive, melancholic portrayal of Dr. Harvey, a man who can’t acknowledge that his life project has dead-ended. Boone humanizes the sad-sack Harvey, giving an unexpected heft to what in less capable hands would be a merely depressing role. The other three performers quickly establish an emotional tonic note for their major parts—nervousness, chumminess, goofiness, etc.—and stay anchored in that mood, thus maintaining some order amid the presto-chango role shifts.
Alas, even the best acting can’t totally overcome a script missing conviction and dramatic urgency. “Incognito” lacks the impact of the movie “Memento”—which concerns a memory-impaired man whose story in effect moves backward—because we never fully enter the mind of Henry Maison or other characters whose brain issues prevent them from engaging with outward reality. We see them only from the outside, as objects of study and stepping stones to published papers and academic success.
There’s one sharp insight lurking deep within “Incognito’s” sprawling, convoluted structure: that the human brain, divorced from mind and spirit, is more of a problem than a source of wonderment. Of the score of characters in this brain-obsessed play, not one can be described as fundamentally happy, balanced, altruistic or fulfilled. The show’s truest moment is a throw-away line spoken by a psychologist to Henry Maison, the human guinea pig trapped in a perpetual mental needle skip: “We’d all be out of a job without you.” There is always the awkward fact of exploitation, which this play never quite owns up to or challenges.
On a positive note, this sterling production of a flawed play announces to the theatergoing public that Tin Drum—which was launched only last year—is a company worth watching. Chicago’s theater scene is a crowded one, even in our pinched post-pandemic world, but there’s always room for an intellectually ambitious, language-focused troupe that’s willing to explore ideas and take dramatic chances. I look forward to seeing the next steps taken by this young and promising ensemble.
Tin Drum Theatre Company’s “Incognito” runs through August 3 at Theater Wit, 1229 West Belmont. Tickets are $15-$39, available at theaterwit.org.
