CurtainUp
The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features, Annotated Listings


A CurtainUp Review
Kings

All lawmakers you are susceptible to flattery. I, however, am not. I don't need it. Which is why, long after you've been voted out next year, I will be in DC and Lauren will be in DC. Reading case studies, meeting with members, explaining things to them because they're too lazy to consume and process raw data, and writing and revising and agonizing over the Code of the Laws of the United States. Doing the real work of government while you guys pose for photos and complain about all the parties you have to attend. — Kate, one of the "kings" navigating the world of the Washington's influence peddling lobbyists.

Unless you're wealthy enough to fund your own campaign, you have to accept donations from folks who believe in your positions. That's how you get people in congress from all different walks of life. That's how a guy like me, the son of an oil field mechanic, became your Senator. Unless we want a government run only by folks rich enough to fund their own campaigns, in which case I'd say let's just give up on the notion of democracy whole hog, we are all dependent on this system.— Senator John McDowell, defending the system that enables Kate and her bosses to win their support lobbying him and his colleagues lobbying bosses to
Kings
Zach Grenier and Eisa Davis (Photo: Joan Marcus)
Most wannabe writers follow that most common piece of advice "Write what you know." But not Sarah Burgess. She used her knack for absorbing the insider details about the maneuverings and jargon in worlds she'd only heard about to write her first play. Dry Powder.

. Now Burgess has followed up that crisply constructed and full of snappy dialogue play about the manipulative investment world, with Kings. Like Dry Powder, it's been given a stylish production by the Pubic Theater, this time at their LuEsther Hall. Mega-hit Hamilton's director Thomas Kail is back on board to steer a high profile cast through a hell-bent on reform first-term House of Congress Representative's trajectory through the realities of getting things done without becoming part of politics-as-usual system.

While she's no more worked in Washington than on Wall street, Burgess has tackled the lobby-influenced insider world of our nation's capital with believably authentic detail. As Dry Powder swirled about the workings of a term most people would have a hard time defining, so the equally hard to fully comprehend carried interest loophole that Rep. Millsap wants to eliminate drives the plot of Kings.

Ms. Burgess once again uses four fictional characters to propel her plot: Lobbyists Lauren(Aya Cash) and Kate (Gillian Jacobs). . . Senator John McDowell (Zach Grenier) the Ways and Means chairman who has his eye on the White House. . . Rep. Sydney Millsap, a war widow who has a young son and previously worked as an accountant, whose first effort at legislative reform is a Yes vote on a proposal to end the carried interest loophole. Both McDowell and Millsap are Texans.

The play unfolds at a fast pace through a series of short scenes in multiple locations that begin in December and end a year and a month later at an annual lobby-sponsored event at a Colorado ski resort. Between those book ending scenes the action shifts to various locations. These include a fund-raising call center (also lobby sponsored, in this case to allow legislators to solicit donation which they are prohibited from doing in their congressional offices), and a restaurant serving Texas style hot chili.

These interchanges are mostly one on one conversations without much physical movement. However, the play's most physically and in every other respect dynamic scene involves a heated debate at San Antonio College.

All four actors expertly deliver Burgess's sharp and at times funny dialogue. The script helps them to avoid the trap of portraying their characters as stereotypes. Instead, each comes off as a combative but distinct personality.

No one is an arch villain or indisputable hero. This isn't a contemporary version of Gore Vidal's The Best Man which pitted an ethical, erudite senator against a down-and-dirty one. And Eisa Davis's Representative Millsap is hardly as naively idealistic as Jimmy Stewart's newly appointed senator was in the seminal 1939 Frank Capra film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Powerful corporations with paid lobbyists like Lauren and Kate were not yet part of Washington politics until years later.

Even if they had this money-powered kind of lobbying in the old black and white movie days, Burgess's lobbyists would have been been a romantically involved man and woman. Instead Lauren and Kate are both gay. However, this does not add a thoroughly modern romantic element. Since Lauren is married to a powerful elected official and has a long history with Senator McDowell their gender identities are used merely as a device to point out yet another way lobbyists and legislators are literally in bed with each other.

Despite Cash and Jacobs's able performances, neither Lauren or Kate are especially memorable characters. Thus Burgess's cynical and depressingly realistic take yesteryear's stage and screen dramas, make the battling high-minded and pragmatic politicians more fully rounded and interesting to watch than the follow-the-money lobbyists. Zach Grenier, is unsurprisingly terrific as the Senator whose long-held job as well as the even bigger one he aims to nab take an unexpected turn. Grenier also gets some of the funniest dialogue in another fundraiser scene, this one a Disney character breakfast that has him grumbling about having Mickey waffles seated next to Lauren's podiatrist client and the gremlin from Aladdin.

Eisa Davis, whose credits range from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to the musical Passing Strange, does a fine job depicting the confidence and vulnerability of Representative Millsap. Both are quite touching in their final meet-up .

As he did with Dry Powder, Director Kail has reconfigured the theater. But instead of seating the viewers all around Anna Louizos's raised platform stage they now sit on just two sides which means that they almost always see the actors only in profile. This is exacerbated by the fact that the actors are almost always seated and thus unable to play to both sides by moving around as they speak.

Two welcome exceptions to these limited views of the actors' faces are The rotating prop bases for a couple of scenes in which two of the actors sit around a table are welcome exceptions to these limited views of the actors' faces. And while I'm quibbling, the props generally have a too similar feel to really clarify all the location for the audience. That said, the stagehands deserve a big bravo since they move these props on and off stage with choreographed precision, and in fun directorial touch act as waiters serving up the steaming dishes in that hot chili restaurant scene. The production also benefits from the top-grade work of the costume lighting, sound designers (Paul Tazewell, Jason Lyons and Lindsay Jones).

Bombarded as we are with real examples of the follow-the-money chicanery in DC, the story of these kings and their enablers doesn't really break any new ground. It's more confirming than inspiring. The only thing really new is the playwright's use of a convoluted tax law as a major plot point. No wonder the Public's Artistic Director Oscar Eustis ends his program note stating that he should but can't be thankful to the DC power players for passing a new tax law with the carried interest loophole in place and so making Kings especially relevant. Judging from he full house at the press performance I attended plus the annoucement of an extension, the unwelcome relevance of Kings isn't going to keep the Public's many fans from buying tickets.

As I admitted in my review of Dry Powder, I find plays with lots of insider revelations about people like Burgess's financial and political game players less compelling than those focusing on the people affected by their power plays (for example, Steven Karam's The Humans and Lynne Nottages <a href="sweat.html"> Sweat ).

Here are links to my review of Dry Powder and its recently opened London productions: the Public Theater review . . the London review.





Search CurtainUp in the box below Back to Curtainup Main Page

PRODUCTION NOTES
Kings by Sarah Burgess
Directed by Thomas Kail
Cast: Public's LuEsther Theater 425 Lfayette Street
Aya Cash (Lauren), Eisa Davis (Representative Sydney Millsap), Zach Grenier (Senator John McDowell), Gillian Jacobs (Kate), and Rachel Leslie (Understudy for Kate, Lauren, and Rep. Sydney Millsap).
Scenic design by Anna Louizos
Costume design by Paul Tazewell
Lighting design by Jason Lyons
Original music and sound design by Lindsay Jones
Stage Manager: CJ LaRoche
Running Time: 1 hour and 40 minutes, no in7ermission
The Public Theater's LuEsther Hall 425 Lfayette Street
From 1/30/18; opening 2/20/1; closing 4/01/18
Reviewed by Elyse Sommer at 2/18/18 presspreview


REVIEW FEEDBACK
Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
  • I agree with the review of Kings
  • I disagree with the review of Kings
  • The review made me eager to see Kings
Click on the address link E-mail: esommer@curtainup.com
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V):

Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email. . .also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review.

For a feed to reviews and features as they are posted at http://curtainupnewlinks.blogspot.com to your reader
Curtainup at Facebook . . . Curtainup at Twitter

©Copyright 2018, Elyse Sommer.
Information from this site may not be reproduced in print or online without specific permission from esommer@curtainup.com