"What Rising Tide?"
The Low Road is Pulitzer
Prize-winner Bruce Norris’s (Clybourne
Park) uniquely engaging, satirically
didactic, everyman’s primer regarding the impact of Scottish philosopher Adam
Smith’s (The Wealth of Nations)
laissez-faire theory on American capitalism. It could as easily have been
titled The History of Jim Trewitt, A
Foundling.
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| Kevin Chamberlin, Harriet Harris, Chris Perfetti. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
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| Daniel Davis (left), Harriet Harris (center), Crystal A. Dickinson (right), and company. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
As the goodhearted Tom grows older, his sexual appetite
embroils him in a series of bedroom escapades; on the other hand, Jim’s (Chris Perfetti) mathematical talent gives him a rapacious hunger for economic self-enrichment,
regardless of who gets hurt. His determined selfishness eventually inspires him to rail against
taxation or any sort of social welfare for the poor. The distasteful
light Jim shines on today’s corporate greed is bound to his skewed understanding of Smith’s
theory of the “invisible hand,” which, as the phrase goes, creates a rising
tide that lifts all boats.
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| Crystal A. Dickinson, Chris Perfetti, Harriet Harris. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
And who better to serve as the avuncular narrator of Jim’s
many adventures than Smith himself, played with deliciously winking charm by
the mellifluously voiced Daniel Davis, decked out in white wig and fancy colonial-era
duds?
Over the course of two and a half episodic hours, during
which old-fashioned language mingles anachronistically with 20th-century
profanity, a cast of 17 (playing over 50 roles, with a violinist thrown in for
good measure), takes us through the rise and fall of Jim Trewitt during the 18
years from 1758 to 1776.
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| Chikwudi Iwuji, Chris Perfetti. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Hanging monitors placed around the Public’s Anspacher Theater inform us throughout of the year and place, beginning with our view of Jim as a child (Jack Hatcher) revealing
his prodigious calculating abilities and grasping nature. When old enough to go
off on his own, he purchases a deaf black slave, John Blanke (the outstanding Chukwudi
Iwuji). John turns out not to be deaf at all, and is actually an erudite,
British-accented speaker of the King’s English, albeit guilty of his own overbearing
affectations.
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| Chikwudi Uwuji, Max Baker. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
As Jim makes and loses fortunes, he brandishes a document
that gives him reason to believe his father is George Washington; is robbed and
stripped naked only to be rescued by a blind religious leader, Brother Pugh
(Max Baker), and his charitable congregation; is nearly executed by Hessian
soldiers during the Revolutionary War; becomes professionally attached to a
wealthy New York family, and so on, until his eventual demise. Along the way,
Norris introduces not only a plague but aliens from out of space!
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| Tessa Albertson, Danny Wolohan. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Each situation in the two and a half hour play has something
to do with subjects like property, wealth, usury, theft, and human equality,
particularly with regard to income disparity. Act One is played entirely in the
18th century but, following an intermission, the second act jolts us into the
present day where we observe a televised panel discussion among a group of global
economists at the Forum for Economic Progress, a Davos-like summit. Here, the
self-satisfied, free-market advocates defend their voracious appetites until an
outburst of political anger ends the scene and rockets us back to 250 or so
years earlier.
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| Tessa Albertson, Daniel Davis, Kevin Chamberlin, Harriet Harris. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Given that the play’s occasionally metatheatrical style and
Smith’s specific references already make perfectly clear its contemporary relevance,
Norris is gilding the lily here with an unnecessary distraction. It’s thus a
relief to return to the 18th century for the resolution of Jim’s fate, and that
of Jim’s foil, John, who represents the opposite side of Jim’s coin.
All this is played with supreme confidence and panache by a
versatile, well-drilled company speaking, as appropriate, in British, American,
and German accents. Under Michael Greif’s outstanding direction, The Low Road is given the kind of story
theatre presentation one sometimes sees in adaptations of famous novels such as
David Edgars’s 1980 version of Nicholas
Nickleby.
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| Chikwudi Iwuji, Crystal A. Dickinson. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
An open setting in the three-quarters round, beautifully
designed by David Korins and perfectly lit by Ben Stanton, allows the action to
proceed at a swift, energetic pace, with furnishings and other scenic elements
brought on and off with smoothly coordinated alacrity. Emily Rebholz’s numerous
period costumes (her modern ones as well) ideally define each character, and
Mark Bennet’s music captures just the right historical and emotional tone.
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| Chikwudu Iwuji, Kevin Chamberlin. Photo: Joan Marcus. |
Chris Perfetti is perfectly cast as the comically ambitious,
innocent-looking, but ruthlessly acquisitive Jim. Chukwudi Iwuji brings passion
and elocutionary distinction to John, while the supporting company demonstrates
memorable versatility in multiple roles, especially Kevin Chamberlain, Harriet
Harris, Max Baker, Crystal A. Dickinson, and Richard Poe.
Interestingly, Norris’s first version of the play, produced
in London in 2013, called Trewitt Trumpett. This was well before the election
of our current president, of course, but when that turn of events arrived the
playwright wisely chose to change it. A line about “golf courses” stands out as
perhaps a later addition. It matters little, though, as this Trumpett by any other
name is still off-key.
OTHER VIEWPOINTS:
Public Theater/Anspacher Theater
425 Lafayette Ave., NYC
Through April 1
Through April 1