JoBeth Williams and Jonathan Clem play a mother
and son, who may have Asperger's.
The new off-Broadway play "Body Awareness" explores four characters' interaction during Body Awareness Week at a small college town in Vermont. One character Jared, 21,(Jonathan Clem), according to the narrative of the play, may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome but apparently manifests a very similar personality to someone who does.
The NY Times had a positive review of the play June 5 and profiled the playwright Annie Baker on May 25, and she discussed the Jared character and her childhood in a college town that informs the play.
"Mixed into the play’s acid bath of warring perceptions, knee-jerk responses, unseeing self-regard and burlesque of emotions is the question of whether Asperger’s syndrome is what’s wrong — or right — with the 20-year-old Jared," The NYT says.
“My goal for the play is to not judge anyone, to get at that point where everyone is equally right and equally wrong, so the humor comes from that,” Baker explained.
The NYT review says "Jared, who speaks in an affectless tone that Mr. Clem deploys to sly, comic effect, is proud of his quirky intelligence ('I’m an autodidact' is his mantra) and his obsession with etymology. He reads the book about Asperger’s and rejects the diagnosis flatly but is clearly wounded to the core and seething with anger.
“'Maybe you have Asperger’s,' he tells his mother, Joyce (JoBeth Williams). 'Because you’re kind of an idiot. You’ve never read Crime and Punishment. You’re 55, and you’ve never read Crime and Punishment. Off he stalks to his job at McDonald’s, leaving Joyce in a crumpled emotional heap."
The NYT concludes that playwright Annie "Baker’s generosity of heart, embodied most touchingly in the character of Joyce, and in Ms. Williams’s sensitive performance, invites you to overlook the occasional misstep. 'Body Awareness' is not without minor flaws, but a lack of empathy is decidedly not one of them."
