Keep Up with the Joneses at Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre

The idyllic fantasies and the imperfect realities of contemporary suburban life are explored in the Southern California premiere of The Realistic Joneses at Rubicon Theatre in Ventura. ​​Nominated for the Outer Critics and Drama League Awards and listed by the New York Times as one of the “Best Plays of the Year,” the play revolves around two sets of Joneses: Bob and Jennifer and their new neighbors, John and Pony. 

It turns out the two couples — played, respectively, by renowned theater actor and Emmy Award winner Joe Spano (NCIS), Irish theater actress Sorcha Fox, international Beckett actor Conor Lovett (he’s performed more than 18 Beckett roles in 21 productions), and Faline England (last seen opposite Spano in the Rubicon/Laguna Playhouse co-production of Heisenberg) — have even more in common than identical homes and a shared last names. 

In a show that New York Times critic Charles Isherwood described as, “funny, moving, wonderful, and weird,” the two couples’ relationships begin to intertwine, and the audience gets to eavesdrop on the evolving dynamic between neighbors that forms the plot of playwright Will Eno’s show, which appeared on Broadway in 2014, where it won a Drama Desk Award, was named U.S.A. Today’s “Best Play on Broadway,” and topped The Guardian’s 2014 list of American plays. In addition, The Realistic Joneses was recently included in “25 Significant Plays of the last 25 Years,” in the New York Times.

Previews begin Wednesday, January 25, and the show runs through Sunday, February 12, at Rubicon Theatre Company (1006 E. Main St., Ventura). For tickets, visit rubicontheatre.org or call (805) 667-2900.

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