Theatre in Review: Prosperous Fools (Theatre for a New Audience)

	Sierra Boggess, Jason O'Connell. Photo: Hollis King

Taylor Mac's new farce features the members of a theatre company staging a fundraising gala at a major performing arts center, who find themselves entirely at the mercy of a loutish billionaire, a self-aggrandizing movie star, and the winds of politics. Really, where does the playwright get such ideas?

Well, Moliere, actually. Ostensibly based on Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Prosperous Fools flips the original script. Instead of a gullible moneybags subject to a bunch of cash-seeking art-world predators, Mac gives us Artist, an avant-garde choreographer whose new piece, a "site-specific ballet" based on the Prometheus legend, is the centerpiece of the "National Ballet Theatre" gala. It might be a moment of triumph, but for the fact, as an intern observes, the production is financed by "a real estate petroleum mogul who makes pharmaceutical heroin out of endangered species." Artist, fed up with the intern's temporizing, snarls, "Buckle up! You want a life in the arts, this is what it looks like."

Buckle up, indeed: The benefactor in question, named $#@!$ (pronounced like a clearing of phlegm from his throat), arrives in a chariot decorated with eagle's wings, then announces, "Get me off this fucking thing." He is solely concerned with his reputation as a patron of the arts. As he notes (in his uniquely rambling way): "Giving stuff away is only useful if people know you're doing it, because if nobody says you're doing it, than they will say you aren't doing it, which will stop you from doing it since once someone says you're not doing it, if you do it, they will say you did it only because you were accused of not doing it." Got that?

Despite his rough, tech-bro wardrobe and snarling manner, $#@!$ is something of a worrywart. The evening's top honoree, he is deeply alarmed at the prospect of hecklers. (At a previous event, he insists, "Nobody booed me. Just the audience.") He is even more worried about his fellow celebrity guest, ###-###, a film star who travels with a retinue of starving ragamuffins. Accessorizing for this activity, she appears in an ensemble featuring a see-through gold skirt, its hem adorned with the faces of urchins. (Throughout the evening, costume designer Anita Yavich, collaborating with wig designer Richard Martin, doesn't miss a trick.) Blonde, bejeweled, and toting a stuffed platypus, she is brilliant at striking empathetic poses for the paparazzi. No wonder $#@!$ is alarmed.

Mayhem reigns in Prosperous Fools as Artist's dress rehearsal is interrupted by these spotlight-hogging buttinskis, followed by an opening night that descends into chaos, not least because of the protests raging outside the theatre. Arriving the same week as Donald Trump cheering on a road company of Les Miserables' rabble-rousers at the Kennedy Center, it seems an uncanny mirror of reality. $#@%$ will remind you of a certain budget-cutting mogul known for his sloppy personal style and wild mood shifts. ###-### calls to mind any number of red-carpet Mother Teresas with their exquisitely accessorized consciences. And Artist is a fine stand-in for so many creatives who, seeking to fund their next project, must squirmingly evade or excuse their patrons' sins.

It's a setup that couldn't be more of this moment, and it certainly has its successes. Artist, trying to assuage his conscience, grumbles. "I don't need his money. I could have taken that job writing incidental music for those eight serial killer TV shows," telling himself, "You will spread your sycophancy on thick...if you do not do this, your spot in the season will be taken by Nico Muhly." So desperate is he to keep his project on track, he agrees to pose as Wallace Shawn, here amusingly posited as a must-have sidekick for moguls seeking to prove their cultural bona fides. Mac, who plays Artist, does a thoroughly credible Shawn imitation, especially when complaining about total strangers who stop him, demanding that he reprise the highlights of her performance in The Princess Bride.

If Prosperous Fools often has a merry time depicting a cultural scene sinking into a quicksand of corruption, it sometimes punches below its weight. There's no plot, just more scenes of mounting pandemonium accompanied by arias that state the play's themes, sometimes with verve and sometimes redundantly. (Its two-hour-plus running time could be significantly shortened.) The Wally Shawn gag, funny at first, is reprised one too many times. A twist involving a marriage between ###-### and $#@%$ in exchange for a massive act of charity --"You're telling me, I shouldn't prostitute myself to end world hunger?" she wonders -- never goes anywhere. ###-### makes a strong impression initially, especially with Sierra Boggess making the most of every calculated emotion, but she's a one-joke character. In general, Mac's fondness for writing long, luxurious (not to say torturous) speeches works against his intentions; the best kind of satirists wield stilettos, not curtain speeches. Darko Tresnjak could have done more to organize and punch up this three-ring circus of a play. (He does pull off a pearly gag involving an award dropped into the orchestra pit, the object followed by several hapless company members.)

Still, Mac is saying something that very much needs to be said, and Prosperous Fools often exhilarates while biting the hand that feeds it. If Mac is frequently sidelined, letting the other characters run amok, he gives Jason O'Connell what may be the role of his career. $#@%$, an overfed lout dressed in a jokey T-shirt and baseball cap, his behavior both overbearing and wildly insecure. In a case of Mac's rhetorical excess working to his advantage, he delivers a lengthy, sumptuous meltdown for $#@%$, who proves to be more brittle than anyone imagines. If ###-### is funnier in concept than in execution, it allows Boggess the chance to display a hitherto unseen knack for satire. Jennifer Regan scores points as Philanthropoid, the theatre's artistic director, who delivers the gala's preshow announcement dressed as Marie Antoinette. (Grimly eyeing the audience, she says, "You all look wonderful. Although I would like someone to tell me how workout clothes became fashion." She adds, "You're all so beautiful. So diverse. There are so many different kinds of...white people." It's little wonder she ends up in a straitjacket.) Kaliswa Brewster makes a strong impression as the intern who can't stop posing awkward questions.

Also, choreographer Austin McCormick amusingly renders Artist's Prometheus ballet as a kind of sub-George Balanchine exercise, aided by Alexander Dodge's set, which includes an upstage wall of clouds, a blood-stained kiddie pool, and a giant cube suitable for imprisoning classical heroes. Projection designer Aaron Rhyne supplies signage for the ballet company and photos that pay tribute to the guests of honor. Matthew Richards has the tough task of rendering an unfinished lighting design for the ballet, which he pulls off without making the stage look unattractive; he also uses blinder cues to provide Mac with a true star entrance. Jane Shaw's sound design punctuates the action with thunder, trumpet flourishes, snatches of "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck, applause, those dreaded boos, and T-Bone Burnett's fine incidental music.

Prosperous Fools is messy, filled with misfires, and often seems to have no idea where it is headed next. But there's always something hilarious or thought-provoking just around the corner, and Mac certainly earns points for going where so few of his colleagues dare to tread. In the finale, he goes full Moliere, often a majestic summing up in rhymed couples, that forces the audience to face itself. "Could theatre be emblematic/Of all the ways we're autocratic?" It's a question that wants answering. --David Barbour