Monday, October 30, 2017

Junk

B+


Lincoln Center Theater has pulled out all the stops for its production of Ayad Akhtar’s (Disgraced, The Invisible Hand) look back at the world of finance in 1985. The size of the cast — 23 — and the sleek set by John Lee Beatty with modules that pop out as needed to facilitate smooth scene changes suggest that no corners were cut here. This is appropriate to the play’s theme. Robert Merkin (Stephen Pasquale; The Bridges of Madison County, Far From Heaven), the central character, is loosely based on Michael Milken, who turned the financial world upside down with his unsentimental application of the logic of globalism to corporate America, which often made companies worth more if they were dismembered and their unprofitable manufacturing operations closed irrespective of the number of jobs lost. The play follows the attempted hostile takeover of Everson Steel by a company backed by Merkin, who has discovered that Thomas Everson, Jr. (Rick Holmes; Hapgood, Matilda) has been cooking the books to hide the fact that profits from their pharmaceutical division have been used to hide the losses of their steel mills. When Israel Peterman (Matthew Rauch), whose company Merkin has selected to acquire Everson, and Merkin meet with Everson and his lawyer Maximilian Cizik (Henry Stram; The Cruiclble), it does not go well. The not so subtle anti-Semitism of the white-shoe financial powers versus the Jews who are threatening their status quo is an underlying theme. Some of the other characters we meet are an ambitious journalist Judy Chen (Teresa Avia Lim); Merkin’s loyal attorney Raul Rivera (Matthew Saldivar; Act One, Honeymon in Vegas), Murray Lefkowitz (Ethan Phillips), an investor with a nervous wife; Jacqueline Blount (Ito Aghayere), a lawyer who plays both sides against each other; Leo Tesler (Michael Siberry; When the Rain Stops Falling), an older investor with a taste for Judy and a distaste for “junk”; Boris Pronsky (Joey Slotnick; The Front Page), a shady middleman that Merkin’s wife Amy (Miriam Silverman; A Delicate Ship) begs him not to do business with; and Giuseppe Addesso (Charlie Semine), the N.Y. district attorney who is running for mayor. Virtually every character is corrupted by money at some point along the way. The lack of anyone sympathetic to root for is a problem for me. It is basically an ensemble piece with too many characters for any of them to be developed in much depth. If you are too young to remember the rise and fall of Milken, you may learn something new. Otherwise, your level of engagement may depend on your interest in finance and the economy. There’s more here to engage the intellect than the emotions. I thought Lucy Prebble’s play Enron was far superior. Catherine Zuber’s (Oslo, The King and I) costumes befit their characters. Doug Hughes (The City of Conversation, The Father) skillfully keeps the many strands under control. Running time: two hours 20 minutes including intermission.

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