“Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.” —The Wizard of Oz
Actually, the secret of Josh’s appeal isn’t at all mysterious: Despite his pudgy, messy looks, his bad ‘stache, single pair of pants, and job as the tech equivalent of a burger flipper, despite his love of Applebee’s and the oeuvre of Billy Joel, he has—like Eliza’s coded Watson—an off-the-charts empathy quotient. Josh can read Eliza the way Yo Yo Ma reads Bach. Which, among other things, makes him a marvel in the sack. His only shortcoming is that, unlike Eliza’s Watson, he’s a human, and therefore constitutionally incapable of fulfilling her deepest wish—that, as she tells him, “I will never want for comfort again and you will be my perfect wondrous companion and you will never fail me or leave me alone”—however hard he may try. Much of The Watson Intelligence concerns Eliza’s attempts to wrestle that out.
Through 11/14: Thu-Sat 8 PM, Sun 7 PM Theater Wit 1229 W. Belmont 773-975-8150theaterwit.org $12-$36
