Description: Joanna thinks too much and works too much, and she's just starting to remedy her problem of dating too little, when she falls in the snow and doesn't wake up for three years; now that she’s tuned to an unfamiliar clock, recovery might take longer than expected.

First Produced: 2003
Date Added: 2/21/2012
Content Advisory:
Keywords: Comedy  Drama  Characters are mostly young adults  Families  Sickness and Mental Illness  Mostly Female Characters 
1 Act, 90 Minutes
5 Females, 1 Male

From the Playwright:

I wrote Out from Under It as kind of a metaphorical response to a serious illness in my family. I think I was most interested in what I’d noticed about how people talk when faced with the ill person—especially in their valiant attempts to be kind and protective, which can come out sounding like equivocation or false cheer. I find myself doing that too, I mean it’s hard to know what to say in these situations, and the fallbacks seem to work.  But I was surprised going through it how incredibly unhelpful we are when we’re on our best behavior, and I thought that had the potential to be pretty funny. Of course, the play became about much more as I followed the implications of the situation I’d created and started to focus on the idea of lost time. I think that’s applicable to a lot of experiences, and makes the play much more broadly relatable-to.

I am grateful to Vital Theater Company for taking the play on when the terrific director Alex Aron brought it to them—we pretty much tore apart and put back together their old space on West 42nd Street!—and to the amazing company of actors and designers who joined us. It’s been nice to get to revisit it after so long thanks to Indie Theater Now.

NOTE: Out from Under It is fully protected by copyright law and is subject to royalty. All inquiries concerning production, publication, reprinting or use of this play in any form should be addressed to susan@newgeorges.org.

Original Production Information

Out From Under It was first presented June 23-July 19, 2003, by Vital Theatre Company, New York City, with the following cast and credits:

Joanna: Addie Johnson
Sarah: Christy Meyer
Calvin: Saxon Palmer
Sheila: Pamela Dunlop
Emily: Alison Weller
Dr. Jane Mackie/The Titless One: Camilla Enders

Director: Alexandra Aron
Set: Lauren Helpern
Lights: Diane Fairchild
Costumes: Oana Ban

Review by Aaron Leichter

Time is a tricky subject to talk about philosophically, because as a perception it’s almost imperceptible. But one of theatre's greatest strengths is its capacity for making an abstraction concrete, simply by showing how that abstraction affects behavior. In her quirky comedy Out From Under It, playwright Susan Bernfield contemplates the effects that our modern conception of time has on our emotional well-being.

Time is both an objective measurement (“I leave work in 15 minutes”) and a subjective perception (“the minutes drag”). Between these two notions of time lies a chasm that workaholic Joanna accidentally drops into when she’s beaned one night by an errant snowball. When Joanna awakens from her coma three years later, she finds her internal clock somehow “off” from the rest of the world, as if her watch had slowed down without her noticing. She spends the rest of the play trying to find the beat that the rest of the world keeps time to. “Where’s normal?” asks Joanna, as she learns that while her life paused, her sister got married, her parents split up, and her best friend got promoted. Lurking under her metaphysical confusion is the shock of mortality. A random snowball ended Joanna’s life once already; she begins to sense that life has value because of its scarcity.

The ratio of value to scarcity is, of course, an economic relationship. Bernfield’s capitalist approach to existentialism forms another layer of the play. Bernfield’s written a gray-toned examination of a culture where market forces are more important than the soul. As in Don DeLillo’s novels (which Out From Under It resembles), modern American culture has alienated people from their surroundings. Initially, Joanna defines herself by her job advertising crumble cake, but after her reawakening, she finds that this very common practice doesn’t solve her temporal problems.

If the play has a fault, it's that it’s fairly sedate and static. Joanna goes to work, visits the doctor, talks to her mother and her sister and her boyfriend, but nothing much actually happens. In fact, Joanna spends so much time musing that some audience members might want to shout at her, “Go dancing, get some exercise, have some fun and stop thinking so much!”

If they don’t, part of the reason is Addie Johnson’s performance as Joanna. She has a lithe body that she makes almost gawky, and a smile that’s beguiling. Johnson’s Joanna walks like a woman who still isn’t used to her adult mind and her post-adolescent body, while her interactions with her family (especially her laugh) retains a childish sprightliness. She's like Wendy from Peter Pan: she’s the girl who’s finally decided to grow up, but hasn’t arrived yet.

Johnson is backed by a capable cast, but only Camilla Enders (as Joanna’s physician, Dr. Jane) approaches her relaxed and intelligent performance. Enders renders her character with quick strokes: a prim delivery and a ramrod posture tell us everything we need to know about Dr. Jane. Enders also plays Jane’s sister, a victim of breast cancer with whom Joanna holds imaginary conversations. Both turns demonstrate Enders’ flair for the physical side of acting and her confidence in her abilities.

For a play about maturing, Out From Under It comes across as very youthful. The performances are fresh and the design is modern and chic (Lauren Helpern’s grey minimalist set illustrates the play’s tone admirably). Out From Under It shows the future opening wide for Joanna, and finds hope as well as fear in that opening.

review of the original production in 2003

Excerpt from Out from Under It

SARAH

She looks a little like you, they say.

JOANNA

Really? Who says?

(ashamed at her competitive enthusiasm)
Sorry.

(long beat; in a desperate attempt to save the conversation:)
Y’know. Funny. I look at a baby and all I think is, oh, you poor thing, you still have to go through nasty beastly childhood, right? And adolescence, ugh. They’re gonna make you play dodgeball, yes, imagine this, little Bridget, this is a game where the big hefty types are authorized -- by the government, if it’s public school -- they’re authorized to hit the weaker kids with big red rubber balls.

SARAH

Maybe Bridget will excel at dodgeball.

JOANNA

Huh?

SARAH

Someone must like it.

JOANNA

I can’t think that. After I’ve taken the trouble to warn her? No, I can’t think that.

(getting more carried away as she tries to carry the conversation)
While I’m walking around in hard shoes getting bunions, she’s riding in a nice, comfy stroller, she gets to play with toys, she has no shoulder tension.

SARAH

So.

JOANNA

So, I don’t need that, I already envy her! I’ve been through dodgeball! That’s the only thing I have on her!

(she laughs, alone)

SARAH

Is this how you talk to people?

JOANNA

I -- I’m just trying to make conversation.

SARAH

To be funny.

JOANNA

I don’t know. To be observant. To make conversation.

(beat)
You liked me when I was a vegetable.

SARAH

Yes. I did.