GREED:
A MUSICAL FOR OUR TIMES
From
Plautus’ THE POT OF GOLD to Molière’s THE MISER to Martin Scorcese’s THE WOLF
OF WALL STREET, greed has long provided a rich vein of comic and serious ore
for theatre and filmmakers to mine. Only within the past week or so, New York has seen the opening of such greed-related shows as THE THREEPENNY OPERA and THE HEIR APPARENT. The subject is now the heart of a satirical
revue, GREED: A MUSICAL FOR OUR TIMES, directed by Christopher Scott, at New
World Stages. The book, music, and lyrics are by Michael Roberts and the 85-minute
intermissionless show--a best musical winner at the 2006 NYC Fringe Festival--features four performers, two men and two women. The ladies
are Julia Burrows and Stephanie D’Abruzzo; the men are James
Donegan and Neal Mayer. Each is pleasant and moderately talented, but none
stands out either for comic or vocal distinction; less shrillness and fewer flat notes might have helped.
The
producers haven’t spent much money on sets or musicians, depending mainly on Josh
Iacovelli’s arrangement of black velvet curtains for the background, and an
onstage pianist and percussionist seated at stage right for the music. There are some clever lyrics
in the songs, but not all of them are on the same
level, and an hour and a half of song after song about covetousness verges on
overkill.
One
routine, “Financial Advisor,” has a couple visiting such a specialist only for the seemingly
dumb blonde wife (Ms. Burrows) to know more about the subject than the
jargon-spouting advisor (Ms. D’Abruzzo). There’s a bit about a jealous man
who thinks his friend has everything better than him; another, “When I Saw the Doctor,”
about medical greed; and one, “Inside Information,” about inside trading. “A
Little Juice” is about steroid use in sports, with three performers sticking
their heads atop cardboard paintings of muscle-bound athletes (one in a Yankees
uniform), while “The Ballad of Jamie Dimon,” done as a cowboy song, describes
the avariciousness of that billionaire.
A
Dolly Parton type (Ms. Burrows) boasts in “Another Kid” about making
money off the federal welfare state by having illegitimate children, and then,
in the show’s most tasteless bit, sings about plotting to have a disabled kid
to make even more. The Catholic Church is blasted for seeking monetary power at
the expense of doing “God’s Work,” while art patrons are skewered in “It’s
Mine,” a song spread through the show in three parts sending up different
aspects of the theme. People who
have accidents in public places like malls are sent up in “Slip ‘N’ Fall,” and Ponzi
scheme mavin Bernard Madoff, already knocked (indirectly) this season in THE
UNAVOIDABLE DISAPPEARANCE OF TOM DURNIN and THE COMMONS OF PENSACOLA, gets his
comical comeuppance in “It’s Bernie.” Madoff may be worth a thrust or two for
bringing Ponzi schemes back to public attention, but the original Ponzi himself
gets his own number, “Charlie’s Song.” And, of course, what’s a show about
modern greed without taking the knives to mortgage fraud in “Passing the Mortgages.”
