Theater

Eno packs powerhouse quartet in ‘The Realistic Joneses’

What powerhouse playwright could possibly lure Toni Collette, Marisa Tomei, Michael C. Hall and Tracy Letts into a show?

Tennessee Williams, maybe, or Arthur Miller.

Try Will Eno.

Until now, his off-Broadway “Thom Pain (based on nothing)” and “The Open House,” among others, have shown him to be a wildly divisive writer: Some love his deadpan riffs on language; just as many find him glib and empty.

Yet Sunday night, the Massachusetts native made his Broadway debut with “The Realistic Joneses,” a dark comedy that’s fairly accessible — for Eno (we’re not talking Neil Simon here) — but won’t settle the debate. The show starts off strong before running in circles, leaving you wondering what the point was, exactly.

The play brings together two couples who share the same surname, Jones. Jennifer (Collette) and Bob (Letts) live in a small, semi-rural town. They’re talking on their patio one night when their new neighbors, John (Hall) and Pony (Tomei), come over to introduce themselves. Some wine, some chitchat: It’s all very ordinary.

But nothing’s ever ordinary in Eno’s shows, least of all ordinariness.

From left: Toni Collette, Michael C. Hall, and Tracy Letts in a scene from “The Realistic Joneses.”Joan Marcus

His favorite trick is to have the characters take common expressions literally. When Jennifer invites him to sit down, John replies, “I practically invented sitting down. Actually, that’s not true.”

Nobody really talks like these people, creating a surreal disconnect. Despite their casual dress and banal houses and yards, the couples are off-kilter. They’re also distorted-mirror reflections of each other: Both men have the same rare neurological disease, whose side effects include “sensual mortification.”

The very different ways they and their wives deal with their illness consumes most of the play. Bob is in denial, leaving Jennifer in charge of looking after his treatment. John, on the other hand, purposefully leaves the bubbly, if fragile, Pony in the dark.

The only member of the quartet who doesn’t partake in the constant wordplay is Jennifer. Collette does some heavy lifting to fill in Eno’s blanks. You can read deep sadness in the wide planes of her expressive face, in her lost, unfocused eyes.

But there’s only so much Collette can do as the linguistic games wear on.

“There’s so much crap in the world. Stupid crap and pain,” Bob says. “Now where was I going with that?”

Damned if I know.