The Memorandum
cast list
Mark Alhadeff, Nilanjana Bose, Trent Dawson, Jeffrey C. Hawkins, Joel Leffert, Kate Levy, John Plumpis, James Prendergast, Lynn Wright
directed by
Jenn Thompson
|  |
In Vaclav Havel's play The Memorandum, a new language is catching fire; it's called "Ptydepe," and it's a needlessly verbose alternative to natural human speech that allows language to be alternately less precise and more business-friendly (when the business in question requires imprecision above all else).
If this first paragraph confused you already, perhaps The Memorandum isn't for you. A sharp piece of quasi-dated social commentary, the 1966 play, which is itself a sort of cross between Beckett and Ionesco, bears little subtlety. The details of the plot involve a power struggle within the office hierarchy.
|
|
|
At the start of the play, Josef Gross, is at the top of the corporate ladder as managing director. His deputy, Jan, however, is the master mind of the Ptydepe movement, which subsequently allows him to usurp Gross in terms of power. Throughout the remainder of the play, Gross, who allowed Ptydepe to prevail due to a minute oversight, struggles to make his way back to the top, his plight influencing, along the way, a young worker named Maria, who's just beginning to discover herself and her place in both the office and the world.
The Actors Company Theatre, whose mission is to revive rarely-seen works, has chosen a rather odd play to start its 2010-2011 season. While it's a play that tickles the mind, there isn't much here in the way of heart. What the play has in its favor is a top-notch cast, led by James Prendergast, who is a last-minute replacement for the previously announced Simon Jones (one of TACT's artistic directors), who suffered an injury. He's joined by Mark Alhadeff as Jan and Nilanjana Bose, whose Maria has the proper sense of naivete. Prendergast, who shone in last season's The Late Christopher Bean has exactly the sort of unwitting charm that the play needs to make it work (when it works).
Though TACT's consistently dedicated company of actors impresses, however, one can't quite shake the feeling that The Memorandum is more work than pleasure. And, while the work of keeping up with Havel's incisive observations can be rewarding on an intellectual level and the play has its moments of hilarity, there's an underlying mayhem that TACT only touches on. As it's presented here, The Memorandum is smart and serviceable, but it could have been something altogether more insidious.
| |
|
|
New York reviews
|
 |
Three Sisters, Classic Stage Company
The Piano Lesson, Yale Repertory Theatre
The Momentum, Laurie Beechman Theatre
The Walk Across America for Mother Earth, La MaMa E.T.C.
John Gabriel Borkman, BAM Harvey Theater
Blood From a Stone, Acorn Theatre
Malfi, Inc., Theatre 54
Pieces, 59E59 Theaters
A Delicate Balance, Yale Repertory Theatre
The Memorandum, Beckett Theatre
The Scottsboro Boys, Lyceum Theatre
Driving Miss Daisy, Golden Theatre
Futura, TBG Theatre
La Bete, The Music Box Theatre
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre
A Life in the Theatre, Schoenfeld Theatre
In Transit, 59E59 Theaters
theatre
|
|
| |
|
|
