THEATER REVIEW: THE POOR OF NEW YORK

A scene from The Poor of New York. Photo Credit:  Henry Holden

Not in but under America

By Ed Rampell

Serious theatergoers have a week left to go to NoHo to see one of the most unique stage offerings currently on the L.A. boards, the Group Repertory Theatre’s revival of Dion Boucicault’s 1857 The Poor of New York. Our economy recently underwent a series of disasters still vexing us but, due to the cyclical nature of capitalism this is nothing new; periodic crises will always be among us as long as there capitalists ride in the saddle. But the Irish playwright’s work starts during the Panic of 1837, which Group Rep’s Co-Artistic Director Larry Eisenberg described in an interview as America’s “first economic collapse, because of greed on Wall Street… Corruption is central to this… Thus this play seemed very relevant.”

Indeed, with its depictions of unemployment, eviction, foreclosure, begging, crime, suicide and other acts of desperation caused by destitution, The Poor of New York has a ripped from the headlines quality, although it’s more than 150 years old.  Stylistically, however, Boucicault’s melodrama is extremely melodramatic.

Eisenberg creatively borrowed from silent filmconventions, and there is actually a screen onstage at the Lonny Chapman Theatre with subtitles and some imagery projected onto it. The production’s props, sets and costumes bestow a period ambiance, as does recorded, old-fashioned music. Footlights mounted downstage enhance the sense of a theater-going experience at a mid-19^th century Broadway thee-a-tuh.     

All of these devices cleverly heighten what playwright Bertolt Brecht called “alienation” techniques that serve to remind spectators via an approach that distances them from the action that they are not watching reality but rather a staged presentation of an approximation of real life. The goal of Brecht and Eisenberg and the Group Repertory, at least here, is to prod auds to think about what they’re watching, instead of merely being emotionally engaged with the story and characters, so they can learn something from the Lehrstücke, or teaching play.

Eisenberg deftly directs the ensemble cast. As the cigar chomping, aptly named Badger, Van Boudreaux strikes the right melodramatic notes. Portraying the devious banker Gideon Bloodgood, Chris Winfield is in the mustache twirling,villainous tradition of bad guys in the Snidely Whiplash mode who used to declare: “Out! Out into the storm! And never darken my doorstep again!” Kate O’Toole is winsome as the love interest Lucy Fairweather while Trisha Hershberger is trashy as the spoiled bourgeois bitch, Alida Bloodgood, who thinks everyone and everything is for sale. It’s good fun watching the evildoers get their comeuppance, with creaky onstage pre-CGI special effects adding to the fun.

However, as this highly recommended play rightfully reminds us, poverty, then and now, is serious business. Greed was not good when perpetrated by Wall Street’s Gordon Gekkos of 1837, or today.

The Poor of New York runs through Sunday at the Group Repertory Theatre at the Lonny Chapman Theatre, 10900 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601. For more info: 818)700-4878; www.theGrouprep.com