Rachel Lynn Brody's Blog, page 31

THEATER REVIEW: "Righteous Money" at the Kraine Theater

As a latter day Jim Cramer, CJ (Michael Yates Crowley) hosts "Righteous Money," a blinged-up version of Cramer's own Mad Money. The audience sits amidst the trappings of a TV studio (a monitor, a camera, and references to an off-stage producer), but the events taking place on stage would have any TV show cut off within minutes. The conceit falls through almost immediately, and from there on out Righteous Money (also the title of the play) is hard to take seriously.

There's no throughline of sociopathy in Crowley's character, thanks to a bizarre breakdown that includes his confessing to an one-night-stand-with-some-meaning-thrown-in with one of the interns. Not for a moment did I believe any of CJ's confessions regarding having true feelings for "Nathan," the intern, and given the enormous dose of self-confidence Crowley has given his character, there were times when director Michael Rau could have brought greater depth to the material – for example (and not that I was hankering for nudity), after CJ spends time bragging about his physical appearance and noting the fact that he sleeps naked, why does he only strip to his boxers when spanking himself for the camera? This lack of logic extends to things like CJ's producer allowing him to remain on the air, and even to the sort of things he says while railing against his assistant. His "freakout" may be realistic, but it fails at providing a cogent dramatic through-line to the play.

CJ's philosophy of money is entertaining – he wants his audience to have access to what he calls "righteous" money – money they deserve, and money beyond what they dream possible – but his repeated references to a non-present "woman guest" Suze Orman soon grow tired.

Righteous Money features a rich topic, perfect (metatextual) timing, and a lead performer who we very much want to like. In the end, though, it never quite achieves liftoff.

THEATER REVIEW: Mission Drift at The Connelly Theater

I always face this problem when I sit down to write about a production from the TEAM (Theatre of the Emerging American Moment). I've seen three of their shows: Particularly in the Heartland (Traverse Theater), Architecting (P.S. 122), and now Mission Drift (The Connelly Theater), and it happens every time: exposed to their rip-roaring style of fully committed theater, I'm struck by an incredible loss for words in how to relate that work to those who have not yet seen the production.

After a few days of thinking about their latest production, Mission Drift, I've come to the conclusion that this is because the TEAM usually veers away from distinct narrative in favor of ideological, immersive mood. Like the TEAM's other productions, Mission Drift is a series of parallel stories, grasping for ways to explain what it's like to be living in a certain kind of America.

 



 

Storyline number one is about a third generation hospitality worker in a large urban area. She meets a man who's come into some money and is just passing through. He invites her to leave with him, she evaluates the pieces that make up her past.

Storyline number two is about two young marrieds, determined to move ever westward in an Orlandoesque state of immortality. Their story is a national one that both explains and questions American character on multiple levels: personal, commercial, geographical being just a few.

The play's core is in Las Vegas – past and present- and therefore the overall presentation happens against the backdrop of casino gambling, nightclubs, and nuclear weapons testing.

This is a devastatingly political play, in the best sense of the phrase. Mission Drift describes something profound taking place in America today: a shift toward awareness of what one character exclaims midway through the play: we have lost the luxury of limitlessness, the luxury of a definable frontier. This is evidenced throughout human experience: wealth, commodities, personal relationships – the world is growing smaller, Mission Drift's message argues, because we can no longer board a ship and travel for months and touch down upon virgin wilderness. The play suggests that America has been locked in a state of perpetual adolescence allowed by its boundless ability for expansion, and that it was the closure of the frontier that urged us to begin looking inward. As they move through incarnations, Catalina (Libby King, previously seen as the protagonist in Architecting) and Joris (Brian Hastert, who welcomed us so warmly, encouraging audience members to sing and interact with the performers as people entered the Traverse for Particularly in the Heartland) begin to look inward.

But the politics are difficult to grasp. What TEAM promotes is not so much a prescription for the future as a diagnoses of the circumstances that have brought America to the moment that is emerging: no longer a superpower, their productions are bathed heady nostalgia. What Bobby Kennedy and Scarlett O'Hara were, in their respective ways, to previous shows Particularly in the Heartland and Architecting, Miss Atomic (Heather Christian, who also played O'Hara) is to Mission Drift. She is a jazz crooner, a Last Vegas showgirl, Celene Dion and a Native American-impersonating spirit of the continent. Christian is the kind of musical performer you'd pay Broadway money to see in a Fosse musical. Her movement is specific, her voice under perfect control no matter its genre, and as the "world spirit" anchor of Mission Drift she propels the story along under tight control.

Director Rachel Chavkin and her team (no pun intended) have done another piece of incredible work with Mission Drift. The show has just been extended into February. Go see it.

In Protest of SOPA and PIPA

The anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA blackout protests have come to a close as of 8pm EST.



 

The Veillee publishes my short story "THE TELL TALE TECH"

Head over to new literary site The Veillee Blog to check out my latest short story – a science-fiction mystery in the style of Edgar Allan Poe, titled The Tell Tale Tech.

For more fiction, you can access my short story Restaurants Are Rated Out Of Four Stars, and stay tuned for the multi-authored speculative fiction anthology Hot Mess, exploring ideas and themes around Climate Change - coming this March for Amazon Kindle!