October 26, 2008

Broadway review: 'Speed-the-Plow' is must-see not-TV

NewYorkology contributor Alexandra Farkas had the chance to see “Speed the Plow” just before its opening night on Thursday. Farkas, who earlier this year directed the New York premiere of John Fleming’s “The Two Lives of Napoleon Beazley” at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, is back as NewYorkology’s theater critic after a hiatus to give birth to a beautiful baby girl.

Go see “Speed The Plow.”

Go see it with the understanding that it isn’t the very best production of the play you could see, but that when it’s good, it’s brilliant, and you’ll forgive the production it’s clunky moments.

Go see it because it is a hilarious, exhilarating, scathing portrait of the fragile, inane creatures that call themselves “powerbrokers,” and the most fulfilling 90 minutes you may have in a theater this year.

With Jeremy Piven, currently filling the role of Hollywood’s favorite cad/it-boy, audiences may well expect his character in David Mamet’s Hollywood insider play to be the same guy as Ari Gold, the mega-agent he plays on HBO’s “Entourage.” But he’s not. Piven chose to play the less ambitious, more troubled of the two studio executives who are clawing their way to the top of the food chain. And in choosing to play against the type we’ve come to know him for, he gets to play with revealing the underbelly of someone who desperately hungers for ever-more power and fortune. His character, Bobby Gould, has landed the title he’s wanted forever and is suddenly thrown a curve ball in the form of a temp who makes him question everything that landed him where he is.

The more aggressive of the two, Charlie Fox, is played by Raúl Esparza, who is a great actor largely unknown outside of the theater community. Here he is in his prime, trading rapid-fire quips with Piven like it’s something they’ve been doing every day of their lives. When the show gets bogged down in the second act, Esparza — given the opportunity by Mamet’s brilliant script — single-handedly pulls the show back onto its thrilling rails. It’s fun to watch Esparza get angry, but watching him get sanctimonious, when his character has been betrayed, is among the most entertaining things you can see on the stage.

While Elizabeth Moss, who is currently starring in AMC’s outstanding “Mad Men,” ably holds her own in scenes where she is the third wheel, when it’s her turn to go for it, she drops the ball. Her character is certainly not written as well as the two others, but she seems to have trouble finding the clarity her character requires not to sound daft. Neil Pepe’s direction keeps the actors and the audience gleefully going 80 miles an hour, but he and Moss seem not to have gotten her portrayal out of third gear. That said, I never saw Madonna play the part when the play premiered in 1988, but I’m guessing Moss fairs far better than she did.

Speaking of 1988, it’s interesting to note that though the play is 20 years old, it feels fresher and more relevant than many newer shows. Perhaps it’s because the play doesn’t try to be general in any way, it is a very specific story about three people with very specific needs, and in that theirs is a timelessness that will always seem new. Mamet has spent his career honing dialogue that actually sounds like people talk and conveying stories with these spare riffs, but “Speed the Plow,” and this production in particular, don’t seem as academic in their economy as his other plays. Go see it, because it is great American theater at its finest.

“Speed-the-Plow” plays the Ethel Barrymore Theater, 243 W. 47th St., map, through February 22. Regular tickets are priced from $49.50 to $110. Premium seats are $201.50 and $251.50. Student rush tickets are $26.50.

Image source: “Speed-the-Plow” official website

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October 26, 2008 7:46 AM in Broadway, Midtown

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