Suburbia: The Screenplay of the Film Book

Eric Bogosian is complicated. I've never been sure if I like him. In reading subUrbia, there was some clarity offered to that uncertainty.

I read a few of his plays long ago and was drawn to his raw, dark take on the modern world. I suppose that still carries its appeal for me. I'm a stronger reader than I was at the height of my youthful angst, and I'm more concerned about the mechanics of emotion that authors/playwrights utilize in their works.

In SubUrbia (the New Version), Act I. felt way over the top. The language felt weird; like it was trying too hard. It felt like an adult trying to write in the slang of youth; an effort that rarely lands for anyone. It felt like an effort to throw poop at a very large target, from a very close distance.

However, there are three more acts.

As the play progresses, it became apparent that Bogosian is focusing the microscope for us. First, we get the caricature of Americana and then for the remainder of the play, we cut deeper and deeper into the anatomy of the nihilism and pain of the American dream.

It was also fascinating to read a play that was written in the early nineties and updated for a revival in 2017, the time setting of "the present," takes on transitory'yet eternal'properties. The musical references of the twenty-somethings are distinctly nineties, but there are mentions of iPods. The veteran in the story was compelled to join the navy for Operation Iraqi Freedom, fitting him nowhere near the time of the early nineties or of the late teens. Bogosian is a smart guy. He knows how a calendar works. This was on purpose.

The closing line of the play is "This is hell!" Bogosian's use of a no-time/always convention emphasizes an eternal repeating loop of life on the safe and insufferable rim. He underscores the small town sensibility of "This place is as good as any place. There is nothing better. There is nothing worse. Nothing matters. Might as well do nothing here."

I want to say that his bleakness is off the mark. But it is not. I also want to say that the bleakness is the shadow of hope. I don't think that's it either. However, in the forward, Bogosian does offer the honest insight that this was a reflection of the small town that he came from and that these were reflections of him and the people around him. It's not clear which character he may have used as a literary avatar. But his intimate portraits of the characters reveal an internal ugliness of racism, sexism, and violence contrasted against the internal beauties, brokennesses, and deep need for mercy and understanding. In doing so, Bogosian seems to pose the question "The world has real awfulness to it, what are you going to do with your life within in it?"