April 27, 2019
(This
notice was originally drafted during the short run of the show earlier
this season at 59E59. For various logistical/life reasons, I wasn't able
to get it uploaded in time. But upon the news this morning—April 23,
2019—that it would be returning in the Fall, it seemed worthwhile as
both post mortem and preview.)
Imagining Madoff is kind of a weird bird.
Deb Margolin’s play doesn’t really dramatize
the Madoff story, which most of us
know at least in broad outline and has been TV-movied
twice…rather, she attempts to examine Madoff (Jeremiah Kissel) as a man haunted by his
own inability to behave ethically, for fear of losing face and respect, and
thus also haunted by Talmudic teaching, as examined by his friend and mentor,
Solomon Galkin (Gerry
Bamman), an invented character springboarded off the real Elie
Wiesel, who would himself be taken in by Madoff.
Yes,
that’s right, through the filter of Madoff’s prison cell memory, the financial
con man is represented as half of a Shavian dialectic, in which Madoff seeks
self-justification in obvious, surface interpretation, while Galkin demonstrates how each parable can be looked at in
multiple ways, none conclusive. And this is periodically punctuated by
courtroom testimony from Madoff’s unnamed secretary (Jenny Allen).
Though
excellently acted (under the direction of Jerry
Heyman), a little of this goes a long way,
because Shavian dialectic does usually
revolve around a story, while here the only real conflict is the internal one
within Madoff: will he reveal himself to his friend or not, and we know he
didn’t (or couldn’t) and so he doesn’t, despite here being “imagined”—though
perhaps what’s actually imagined was that Madoff had a conscience at all, when
all evidence points to his being a sociopath, as well as having been a con man. And who does that sound like? But within that, perhaps, lies enough relevance and fascination for the return engagement.
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