Script Review: Sorting It Out delivers a poignant message and pierces deep

Matteo Esposito’s morality play and its message of kindness and inclusion is stirring, but could be fleshed out even more.

Cast of Sorting It Out. | Photo courtesy of Matteo Esposito

Great theatre should make the audience feel uncomfortable and confront difficult questions, before leaving them with a gut-punching message. Matteo Esposito’s powerful play Sorting It Out does all of that in the span of thirty minutes.

The message: words matter. As the central protagonist Nick tells the audience in a brief monologue, “words can hurt, maybe more than actions sometimes”. Nick is a middle aged man with autism who lives with the help of a homemaker named Bob, a kind soul who helps Nick with the laundry and groceries a few days each week.

Sparks fly, however, when Nick’s close friend Frank and his son Ed – a cocky, stereotypical millennial who is more comfortable on his devices than with face-to-face company – pay a visit. Before arriving, the pair are already in a tense mood. Ed, having just visited the doctor, desperately wants to get his mind off his incoming test results of an undisclosed disorder by going back home and sinking his head back into his mountain of work. But his father has other plans, and decides to take a detour to Nick’s home to pay him a visit.

Ed, completely oblivious and inconsiderate to Nick’s autism, begins delivering a deluge of insults and offensive remarks directed at Nick after he doesn’t accept Ed’s handshake. Though at times Esposito’s writing is slightly stilted and rushed, there are other moments when it couldn’t feel any more poignant and real. How many times have we heard individuals inconsequentially throw around the term ‘retard’, just as Ed calls Nick?

Any moments when Ed’s character seem too terrible to be true are swiftly swept aside when he delivers the most jarring line of the play: “Society doesn’t understand, so why should I?” It’s then when you come to realize that Ed isn’t just an annoying caricature who you want to just go up onstage and restrain, but a manifestation of society as a whole. Society still hasn’t fully accepted individuals with disabilities. There are people all around us who, like Ed, act completely blasé to those different than them, exuding not an ounce of empathy or kindness.

And perhaps that is the most powerful part of Esposito’s story. Yes, the writing is sharp, searing, and speedy. But the real heart of this piece comes from its ability to hold a mirror to society. I felt uncomfortable reading this play, and for that I am thankful. Because that is what theatre should do.

I hope Esposito continues to develop this play into a full-fledged work. There are further ideas that can be developed, such as Nick’s relationships with Frank and Bob. And though the play ends with a hauntingly beautiful tableau following a stunning turn of events, the penultimate scene doesn’t reach its full potential. Though the rest of this morality play carefully avoids coming off as a lesson to the audience, that scene seems to sum up the moral of the story. Instead of narrowing in focus, it should widen.

Nevertheless, Esposito’s play is a stunning achievement for this young playwright and is a unique work in a time of cookie cutter stories.

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