IMAGINING MADOFF by Deb Margolin at Lion Theatre on Theatre Row

L-R: Gerry Bamman and Jeremiah Kissel in IMAGINING MADOFF.  Photo by Jody Christopherson.

The most important word in the title of Deb Margolin’s thought-provoking play, Imagining Madoff, is not “Madoff” but “Imagining.”  That is because this is no simple re-telling of the tale of the greatest Ponzi scheme in history (Bernie Madoff’s theft of nearly $65 billion from trusting investors, a crime for which he is currently serving a prison term of 150 years).  Rather, it is a highly speculative philosophical, theological, and psychological investigation of why Madoff acted as he did and the moral and ethical issues underlying his actions (and those around him).

Imagining Madoff had its critically acclaimed sold-out New York premiere earlier this year at 59E59 Theaters.  It is now enjoying an encore engagement at the Lion Theatre on Theatre Row on West 42nd Street in midtown Manhattan.

The play is beautifully written and artfully executed with Jeremiah Kissel cast as the tortured, enigmatic, and thoroughly amoral Bernie Madoff; Jenny Allen as his loyal but confused and guilt-ridden secretary; and Gerry Bamman as Solomon Galkin, Madoff’s friend and a Holocaust survivor and poet who is the treasurer of his synagogue (the synagogue itself turning out to be one of the victims of Madoff’s fraud).

(In Margolin’s original version of the play, the friend/Holocaust survivor/poet/synagogue treasurer was not the fictitious Solomon Galkin but the real life Elie Wiesel but when Wielsel objected and threatened to sue, claiming that the play was defamatory and obscene, Margolin converted Wiesel into Galkin.)

Obedience – to parents, teachers, priests and other legal, military and religious authorities - is generally considered a virtue.  But not always.  I doubt if anyone today would claim that the obedience of German citizens to Nazi authorities was a virtue (nor, for that matter, that the obedience of Americans to those enacting Jim Crow laws was either).  But then what are we to say about Abraham’s obedience to God as evidence by his willingness to sacrifice Isaac if that, indeed, was what God commanded?  Would Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac have been a virtue – or a sin?

Or does it all come down to a question of trust – Abraham’s trust in God, the average citizen’s trust in his government, or Galkin’s trust in Madoff – to always do the right thing?  And when they don’t?  Is that what is so dismaying Madoff’s secretary: her misplaced trust in her so-highly regarded employer?

Jeremiah Kissel, Jenny Allen, and Gerry Bamman are absolutely superb in their respective roles as Madoff, his secretary, and Galkin.  And while Deb Margolin provides no perfect solutions to any of these deep philosophical problems, she does ask all the right questions.  And that, at least, is a big step in the right direction.

LUDWIG AND BERTIE by Douglas Lackey at Theater for the New City

L-R: Stan Buturia and Connor Bond in LUDWIG AND BERTIE.  Photo by Anthony Paul-Cavanetta.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (Connor Bond) and Bertrand Russell (Stan Buturia) had little in common in nature, background, or philosophical outlook.  Russell was an Englishman, a generation older than Wittgenstein, a heterosexual sensualist, a hedonist, a pacifist imprisoned for refusing to serve in the First World War, and a self-proclaimed agnostic.  By contrast, Wittgenstein was an Austrian, a bi-sexual, a decorated combat soldier in the First World War, and a puritanical religious Catholic coming to grips with his Jewish roots.  Yet the two men had an enormous effect on one another and were also arguably the two most dominant philosophers of the twentieth century.

Ludwig and Bertie by Douglas Lackey, currently premiering at Theater for the New City on First Avenue in New York’s East Village, tells their story.  It is a comprehensive bio-pic of the lives of the two philosophers, the influence they had on one another’s philosophies, and the extraordinary relationship that existed between them.  The play is a remarkable achievement on two levels: on one level, it provides an exhaustive explication of their respective philosophies (which even those most familiar with the concepts underlying analytic philosophy should find informative and educational).  And on another level, it also provides an entertaining theatrical experience for those less committed to the nuances of philosophical thought in its explorations of these men’s personae.

In penning Ludwig and Bertie, Lackey has taken some liberty with historical facts (as often occurs in bio-pics).  For example, he portrays an argumentative episode involving the aggressive wielding of a poker as having occurred between Wittgenstein and Russell when it actually transpired between Wittgenstein and Karl Popper (as describef by David Edmonds and John Edinow in Wittgensteins’s Poker).  And while it is true that Wittgenstein and Adolf Hitler were schoolmates, there is no real evidence that they ever actually met – then or as adults – although Lackey credits Wittgenstein with having successfully appealed directly to Hitler to achieve freedom from the Nazis for his siblings despite their Jewish ancestry.  But these are minor matters and Lackey does provide a true picture of the lives of Wittgenstein and Russell in the broadest sense.

Both Connor Bond and Stan Butuna are outstanding in their respective roles as Wittgenstein and Russell and they are ably supported by the rest of the cast: Hayden Berry as the young Wittgenstein; Pat Dwyer as the philosopher, G. E. Moore; Alyssa Simon as Russell’s paramour, Lady Ottoline Morrell, and as Wittgensteins sister, Gretl Stonborough; and Daniel Yaiullo as Wittgenstein’s gay lover.

ROUND TABLE by Liba Vaynberg Premieres at 59E59 Theaters

L-R: Liba Vaynberg and Craig Wesley Divino in ROUND TABLE.  Photo by Carol Rosegg.

We really can’t know for sure who other people truly are.  Indeed, we really can’t even know who we ourselves truly are.  Or at least that’s the main message I took away from Round Table by Liba Vaynberg, the intricately structured thought-provoking play currently premiering at 59E59 Theaters on East 59th Street in midtown Manhattan.

Not that the play didn’t broadcast other messages as well.  It did.  For one: There’s a big difference between love and romance.  In fact, as Laura (Liba Vaynberg) sees it, love is the very opposite of romance.  In her words:

“Love’s about like shitting in the same toilet and romance is for people who have potpourri bowls in their bathrooms.”

For another: It may be difficult to be a feminist and fall in love…but it’s not necessarily an insurmountable obstacle.

And for a third: The granting of informed consent is not just a moral imperative in sexual relations; it is a necessary perquisite in all aspects of human relations including the very acceptance of another’s love and even the manner, timing, and scripting of one’s own demise.

*   *   *

Several years ago, Pamela Wolfstein (or someone writing pseudonymously under that name) wrote a successful romance novel and the floodgates opened.  A whole slew of writers were retained to ghost-write formulaic imitations of that singular success story and so they did.  Laura, despite being an avowed feminist herself, was one of them, penning books with covers of heaving bosoms under the pseudonym Pamela Wolfstein, that were sold at airports to middle-aged soccer moms.  And now, as it turns out, Laura is the last of them, the originator of the series having died three years ago.  So is Laura now really Pamela Wolfstein herself?

Zach (Craig Wesley Divino) has a PhD from Harvard in Medieval Literature and currently earns his living as a teacher, writer and consultant on the subject to video and computer game companies and to Round Table, the hit television series based on the Arthurian legends (think Game of Thrones).  Indeed, he actually wrote a couple of the episodes for Round Table himself, working out the plot twists for those episodes by participating in LARP (live action role playing) as King Arthur, as the Knight Tristan, as the Scholar Giles, and as the Wizard Merlin.  In doing so, he was joined by Lena (Sharina Martin), a bartender in real life who may be a little in love with Zach herself and who well may be using LARP to replace her own childhood dreams in the fantasy role of the Sorceress Morgan. And by Jeff (Matthew Bovee), a tax attorney in real life who role plays Arthur’s foe, Mordred, perhaps in part to help him to repress or at least displace his own latent childhood homosexual tendencies.   But who then are Lena and Jeff today - really?

Zach and Laura meet through online dating, which does seem particularly appropriate for the two of them since online dating might be viewed as a bridge between virtual reality and, well, real reality.  They hit it off but it’s not clear whether their relationship will blossom into love or simply peter out after several nights of ice cream, sex, and romance, given the sharp distinction Laura draws between love and romance and her own feminist leanings.

 

At Zach’s urging, however, Laura eventually takes a stab at LARP herself – role playing as the Druid Laurel and as Queen Guinevere – but the game doesn’t come as easily to her as it does to Zack, Lena and Jeff (perhaps because she’s simply somewhat more realistic than any of them are.  So where do Zach and Laura go from there? 

Well, if they really are falling in love (and it seems they are), and if they’re both comfortable with the need for informed consent in all its aspects (and it seems they are), and if neither Laura’s feminism nor Zach’s LARP represent insurmountable obstacles (and it seems they don’t), and If Lena’s feelings for Zach aren’t a real impediment (and it seems they’re not), then everything should be copacetic, right?

Well, maybe not.  Because we left just one thing out.  Zach is very ill – probably dying – from some mysterious mental or brain condition and he has neglected to tell Laura anything about it.

Kay (Karl Gregory), Zach’s gay brother, is a competent and compassionate EMT, and the most sensible and well-grounded of the bunch.  He is fully aware of Zach’s condition and does everything in this power to be of aid to him, ensuring that he keep his medical appointments and insistently attempting to convince him (albeit to no avail) that he abandon his foolish devotion to LARP, which Kay perceives as physically life-threatening in light of Zach’s condition.  But if there is little that Kay can accomplish in that realm, given Zach’s obstinacy, there is absolutely nothing at all he can do in regard to Zach’s star-crossed relationship to Laura.

*   *   *

Round Table is an intriguing theatrical production – when if sticks to its primary plot lines involving the distinction between reality and fantasy, the nature of the “self,” and the relationship between Zach and Laura.  But it goes off the rails occasionally with extraneous matters.  I don’t think, for instance, that there was any point in introducing the issue of Kay’s mild frustration with his partner’s persona.  And, to mix a colorful metaphor, Lena’s suggestion at one point that Zach might be undergoing an adult circumcision as part of a conversion to Orthodox Judaism was just a ridiculous red herring.

*   *   *

The cast of five is absolutely terrific in both their real life 21st Century parts and in their legendary Arthurian roles.  Matthew Bovee as Jeff is a sensitive and tentative tax attorney – but he also makes for a ruthless Mordred.  Sharina Martin as Lena and the Sorceress Morgan reminded me a bit of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another female bartender of color in real life, although Lena’s fantasies, unlike AOC’s, tended more toward sorcery than socialism.

Karl Gregory as Kay provided the play with the solid grounding it required as a counterweight to the fantastical doings of the other four.  And Craig Wesley Divino as Zach, Arthur, Tristan, Merlin and Giles, was simply mesmerizing across-the-board.

But my greatest praise is reserved for Liba Vaynberg who not only wrote the play but starred in it brilliantly as Laura, the Druid Laurel, and Queen Guinevere.  By writing the play and then starring in it herself she provided the perfect meta-example of what LARP, self-identification,  and the fine line between fantasy and reality are all about.