| re: JUNK Tonight (possible spoilers) | |
| Posted by: Singapore/Fling 01:27 am EDT 10/14/17 | |
| In reply to: JUNK Tonight - sergius 11:48 pm EDT 10/13/17 | |
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| The play suffers from a lack of humanity, but I felt that it got somewhere interesting. It's almost a perfect corollary to "Olso", both plays that spend a lengthy Act 1 on setting up the plot before a compelling Act 2 lets the story play out. But whereas "Oslo" had grace and warmth, "Junk" is crudely efficient and bombastic, full of worthless chintz and more cast members than it actually needs. Like he did in "The Father", Dough Hughes employs every trick up his sleeve to dazzle us, but the work feels a bit exhausting and gimmicky, down to a complex array that blinds the audience for a moment in order to cover a dramatic scene change. Befitting the overall aesthetic, the actors are efficient and cool, taking great pains to appear to be doing as little work as possible. Ito Aghayere was the stand-out for me, completely transformed from her gawky prolonged adolescence of "Familiar", playing a lawyer with no moral center or loyalty, only disappointment at not making more money for all of her work. That's ultimately the thematic question that "Junk" gets around to asking late in its story: If we are all ultimately living for money, and if we all have a price at which we sell out our morality, what is it? I wish that Akhtar had a deeper ability to write this play with the epic dimensions it deserves, but as a relatively pleasant evening in the theater, it does at least point to unsettling aspects of our failing economic system, though it lacks the courage to actually investigate fully. There we certainly agree, though I feel like right now we can't be reminded often enough of how our financial system works - and how even the logistics of it are too complicated for most people to fully comprehend. |
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