Tilted
Los Angeles Theater Ensemble dreams an impossible dream
By Don Shirley
As the grim economy dominates the news, many playwrights probably feel compelled to write about it. The eruption of Iraq plays seems to have run its course; what’s a politically aware dramatist supposed to tackle now, if not the latest crisis?
Still, the idea of docudramas about credit crunches or Washington bailouts sounds intimidating and iffy. Meanwhile, human interest stories on the subject are all too common. If you don’t have your own accounts of being laid off, plenty of others are readily available in journalism and in candidate infomercials. You don’t have to pay for theater tickets to see more of the same.
Kit Steinkellner thought of a more creative way of handling the subject in Quixotic, at the Powerhouse Theatre. Quixotic sets Cervantes’s classic tale of Don Quixote within the current economic malaise.
The play is set at “a branch of Munsch-Littleton Insurance. A gloomy office in a depressing building in a soul-suckingly miserable city,” notes the program.
The workers spend most of their time denying claims, because the company can’t afford to pay them. Nor can the company afford to retain the current workforce. After a recent purge, another round of layoffs is expected any day now.
Presiding over this tense ground zero is the bitter Allie Lawrence (Coco Kleppinger), who’s depressed not only by her job but also by her erratic romance with a heedless scion of the ownership class, Richard Munsch (Trevor Algatt).
But first we meet the lower-level wage slaves: the chirpy but gossipy receptionist (Sarah Gold), the new temp (Paige White) whose business school degree hasn’t exactly paid off, a sealed-off young woman (Danielle Katz) who rejects the awkward attempts by her closest cubicle dweller (Nathaniel Meek) to ask her out.
At the center of the office are the amiable Sam Panser (Ariel Goldberg) and the frequently late, mildly eccentric Arthur Quick (Isaac Wade). After an acrimonious confrontation with Allie on one fateful morning, Arthur starts hearing his own private musical score and seeing flashing lights. Soon he appears to be in the midst of a nervous breakdown.
When he returns to work three days later, he’s literally a new man – a delusional knight in not-quite-shining armor who’s determined to do good deeds and to serve his lady fair, the uncomprehending Allie. His podmate Sam soon figures out that this new “knight” is more efficient at processing claims than the old Arthur – as long as he thinks that his efforts serve the greater good of protecting the “castle” (the office) from “goblins.” So Arthur keeps his job, at least for now.
Steinkellner doesn’t claim that Arthur does any tangible good. But his determination to do so leads the other characters to think about a life beyond the bottom line, a world that isn’t ruled by fear.
In the real world, of course, tangible results are more important than inspirational feelings. But perhaps the latter is a necessary first step to creating the former, Steinkellner suggests – which is a sentiment that seems to be shared by a lot of Americans who are still excited by last week’s election. At any rate, Quixotic is a congenial way to think about our economic perils without drowning in the details.
Staged by Amanda Glaze, Quixotic is also yet another eye-opening production from Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble, which is rapidly becoming one of L.A.’s most compelling young troupes. The group already served the Iraq play genre with its wrenching Wounded, and more recently it turned out the Renaissance period piece I Gelosi, which is a far more pointed play about the historical conjunction of theater and politics than is the current The School of Night at the Taper (see adjacent review). Too bad the company’s obvious acronym is LATE, because here’s one group that’s ahead of the curve.
Quixotic, Powerhouse Theatre, Santa Monica, (310) 396-3680. latensemble.com. Closes Nov. 22.
See more reviews at lacitybeat.com. Click on Currently Playing.
Published: 11/13/2008
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