Review - The Low Road

Even though I'm no longer a subscriber at the Public Theater, they still send me emails about their shows before they open.  I don't know why I didn't have Bruce Norris' new play, The Low Road, on my radar this season, but when I got the email listing all the fabulous actors in it, I jumped on board.  I knew next to nothing about it, only that I have previously enjoyed some of the actors and I've previously enjoyed Norris' work.  I have to admit it's been really interesting, going back and reading the reviews and other press after finally seeing the show...  




Actually, The Low Road technically isn't new.  It was written in 2013 and premiered in London.  Norris wrote it in response to the U.S. economic collapse and the election of 2012, but it's kind of amazing how completely on-the-nose this play is about the problems of RIGHT NOW in America.  The first act is sort of a Tom Jones/Candide sort-of-thing, with a penniless orphan making his way in the world.  But the sensibility is totally 21-century American.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

I was rather bemused during the first act, finding the travails pretty funny and the acting quite good, but I didn't find myself especially engaged or feeling like this play was anything particularly special.  And then came the first scene of the second act.  Good gravy!  All of a sudden, I completely understood what Norris was up to, excoriating capitalism and wealthy Americans for their hypocrisy and shortsighted world view!  And I started shouting (in my brain), oh my gosh, he is a GENIUS!  And so I was then completely on board with the completion of the story he started in the first act.  But then there was more!  The batty, wacky deus ex-machina came in and totally blew my mind!!!  Seriously.  I just laughed delightedly at the sheer audaciousness of it, and of the truth-telling that went along with it.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

I'll just share a few tidbits, since seeing The Low Road unfold without really knowing anything about it, was such a treat.  Daniel Davis, long one of my favorites, is our narrator, playing the real-life eighteenth-century philosopher and economist Adam Smith, author of Wealth of Nations.  It's a running joke throughout the play that the protagonist, young Jim Trewitt, just happened to read an early draft of that work and he keeps quoting it back to people, especially the part about the "invisible hand."  Reading just one paragraph turns Jim into a self-advancing capitalist monster and so our story unfolds.  

Other fantastic characters were escaped slave and would-be-aristocrat John Blanke, played by Chukwudi Iwuji, who is now another of my favorites, as was Brother Pugh, played by Max Baker.  Oh, and Harriet Harris is always a treat.  Most actors played more than one character and all were terrifically delineated and individualized.  Although most characters in the play are rather unsympathetic, they're all so wonderfully acted and interestingly written, that I was engaged throughout.  There's a terrific cliffhanger at the end of the first act and I've already mentioned that I found the first scene of the second act (which takes you out of the plot of the first act for a few minutes, but comments on it brilliantly) to be utterly genius.  In the interest of full disclosure, though, the play is pretty talky, rather long, and I wasn't happy with the treatment of a character with a developmental disability, but I took the not-as-good with the good.  The whole was greater than the sum of its parts, or some such thing.  I had a great time.

There was a talkback after the performance and it was a treat, too.  Bruce Norris is a really terrific conversationalist and he was quite open and honest about his pessimism about life and how it seeps into his writing.  He also was quite a good sport and funny when people asked questions that seemed to indicate they didn't quite understand what he was going for.  I laughed out loud when one of the other actors said that he was now a pessimist, thanks to working with Bruce, and then Bruce raised his arms in triumph!  It was kind of adorable.  I just love talkbacks, I have to admit, and this was definitely one of my favorites.

I only have a report of two seat neighbors - I found them rather horrible in the extreme.  In fact, I had to confront one, which I never do.  Anyway, one gal spent the time before the show started absolutely excoriating Angels in America.  About how interminable it is and how anyone who says they like it is lying.  And she was stating all of this at the top of her lungs, ostensibly because she was talking to her friend, who was seated a few seats away.  I guess that just set my teeth on edge and I never got over it.  I just thought, 'well, I hate you,' and tried not to listen.  Thankfully(ish), she moved right next to her friend right before the show started, so I wouldn't be able to hear them if they needed to continue talking.  When the lights came up for intermission, the gal stood up and said "Oh my god, I'm bored out of my mind, I hate preachy shows!  This is one of the worst things I've ever seen!  I have to get out of here!"  And then she stood there.  At which point, I turned around and asked "Have you ever heard of the five-block rule?"  She said, "What?"  I said, "The five-block rule, where you wait to complain about a show until you're five blocks away.  Because you just never know who you'll be seated near..."  She looked at me, narrowed her eyes and said, "You're not Bruce Norris."  I said, "True, but how do you know I'm not his SISTER?!"  Pause.  Then she stalked out.  Which was great.  One of my nearer seat neighbors whispered "Awesome."  I probably should've let it go, as I usually do, but I guess I snapped.

But the story isn't over.  Her friend, who did come back for the second act, decided to FILE HER NAILS during practically the entire second act.  I tried to death stare.  No help.  I whispered "Shhhhh."  Didn't work.  Another woman turning around and loudly whispering "PLEASE STOP" finally got her to put her nail file away.  Ugh.  People.  I need to start a theater company where I can be the only person in the room.

Actually, those two ladies were the exception.  Everyone else seemed to have a good time and behaved themselves at the show and a good portion of the audience stayed for the talkback and it was a lively discussion.  So the evening ended on a happy note.  But I seriously don't get some people.  I guess I should be grateful they weren't eating soup out of a Tupperware container or something.  But don't let people like that bother you like I let them bother me - go see The Low Road for some smart, funny, high-brow and low-brow entertainment.  And you won't soon see a deus-ex-machina like this one again, I think I can state with confidence... 😃