VIEWPOINTS – It’s lonely up at the top: The price of success in America

An Olympic hopeful swimmer, a country music superstar, and couple of high-powered private equity deal-makers. Currently on the boards of three celebrated Off-Broadway theater companies are a trio of compelling yet cautionary depictions of what it means to be successful in today’s America, and the consequences of attaining such a status.

 

The blank Olympic hopeful swimmer

red speedoLucas Hnath’s appropriately-titled Red Speedo (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) is currently in the midst of an extended run at the New York Theatre Workshop. This slight but intriguing new play tells the story of Ray, an Olympic hopeful swimmer who, on the eve of the Olympic trials, is found out to be taking performance-enhancing drugs. Mr. Hnath, who has made a specialty out of creating disorienting portraits of men in crises (The Christians, Public Reading About Death of Walt Disney), here employs punchy, overlapping dialogue that owes a lot to David Mamet. Mr. Hnath here seems to be making the overarching comment that, especially in our capitalist, self-focused society, human dealings are, more often than not, faught with corruption and deceit. The playwright’s director for this production, Lileana Bain-Cruz, is on the same page. Her slick work imbues the play with a detached sterility that’s apparent in the production’s designs (by Riccardo Hernandez, whose impressive set includes a usable pool), as well as the minimal affect used in the actors. As Ray, the tall, stunningly statuesque Alex Breaux, is giving a chillingly blank performance onto which other characters – his his coach, attorney brother, and ex-girlfriend (played superbly by Peter Jay Fernandez, Lucas Caleb Rooney, and Zoë Winters, respectively) – can project their own toxicity.

 

The seductive, searching country music superstar

15HOLDON-articleLargeKenneth Lonergan’s meaty, gently satiric new play Hold on to Me Darling (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) can be now caught at the Atlantic Theater Company. Mr. Lonergan (This is Our Youth, Lobby Hero), who has the unflinchingly clear-eyed ability to write characters from both an objective and subjective lens, in his excellent new play has sharply and hilariously dissected the odd, insular planet that is celebrity culture. The play’s love ’em and hate ’em protagonist is the fictitious country music superstar Strings McCrane, who, upon the death of mother, decides to go back to his home town in Tennessee to shed his celebrity persona. Not surprisingly, Strings finds this exercise to be a challenge, both from a practical and an inherently personal standpoint. The production is observantly and expertly staged by Atlantic Theater Company artistic director Neil Pepe (the efficient and detailed revolving set is by the top-notch set designer Walt Spangler) and exactingly acted by a company of outsanding actors. In the central role of Strings McCrane – a fascinating black hole of a character who, through his seductive personality, sucks in everyone in his path and leaves chaos in his wake –  is played with tireless stamina and authentic aplomb by Timothy Olyphant.

 

The unethical high-powered private equity deal-makers

20GUIDE2-facebookJumboThe current hot ticket at the Public Theatre is Sarah Burgess’s Dry Powder (RECOMMENDED), a straightforward satire that explores the supposed ethical void of high finance. The plot involves dueling partners at a private equity firm (played by Claire Danes and John Krasinski) and the president (Hank Azaria) who manages and has the final say in the firm’s deal-making activity. Suffice to say, when a make-or-break deal comes along, things heat up at the firm, particularly between its two partners. Ms. Burgess’s has written a very entertaining play with an admirable and keen ear for financial deal-making jargon and vernacular. However, I find her ultimate message is that it’s an impossibility to truly have upstanding morals and ethics in the world banking and finance to be somewhat simplistic and heavy-handed (especially when compared to the skillfully crafted, carefully considered aforementioned Red Speedo and Hold on to Me Darling). Despite my slight reservations about the play, I found the direction by Thomas Kail, fresh from his triumphant work on a little musical called Hamilton, to be spectacular. Mr. Kail’s ultra-slick in-the-round work mirrors the idea that much of finance is smoke and mirrors, a parallel which I found brilliantly realized (sets but Rachel Hauck, lighting by Jason Lyons). The production is compellingly performed by its evenly matched, starry ensemble of four.

 

RED SPEEDO
Off-Broadway, Play
New York Theatre Workshop
1 hour, 20 minutes (without an intermission)
Through April 3

 

HOLD ON TO ME DARLING
Off-Broadway, Play
Atlantic Theater Company
2 hours, 45 minutes (with one intermission)
Through April 17

 

DRY POWDER
Off-Broadway, Play
The Public Theater
1 hour, 35 minutes (without an intermission)
Through May 1

 

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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