Junk

[edjames]

I had two thoughts when I first heard the title of this new Lincoln Center production.

First, is this about a man's crotch and endowment or if I really hate it will I be able to say "this production was a piece of junk?"

 

Ignoring my mental meanderings, I did enjoy this production very much. Intelligent, well-written, good acting, good direction and a very smart set, that seemed to give the production crew problems in the second act and interrupted the show's fast paced tempo for about 15 minutes! (Although, I'm not too sure it was "technical problems" that interrupted the show but a very, very elderly man who seemed to have passed out and had to be helped out of the theater.)

 

Ayad Akhtar, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Disgraced, returns to Lincoln Center Theater with his new play, Junk. Set in the high-flying, risk-seeking, teetering financial world of the 1980s and inspired by the real junk bond kings of the day, this riveting story shows us from the inside how money became the only thing that mattered. Financier Robert Merkin will stop at nothing to take over an iconic American manufacturing company, changing the rules as he goes. With his brilliance matched only by his swagger, Merkin sets in motion nothing less than a financial civil war, pitting magnates against workers, lawyers against journalists, and every one against themselves. Steven Pasquale (The Bridges of Madison Countyand TV’s Rescue Me) leads a large cast, directed by Tony Award winner Doug Hughes (Doubt), in this no-holds-barred portrait of Wall Street at its most powerful — and most dangerous.

[+ WilliamM]

This is part of the problem of only one or two reviews here as opposed to many on other theater sites.

 

Moving on. How was Steven Pasquale? I wish I liked him more in the off-Broadway musicals with Kelli O'Hara (Far from Heaven and The Bridges of Madison Country).