The Recommendation. Flea Theater (see Off-Off Broadway). By Jonathan Caren. Directd by Kel Haney. With James Fouhey, Austin Trow, Barron Bass. Running time: 1hr 45mins. One intermission.
The Recommendation: in brief
The Flea's youthful resident company, the Bats, begins its fall season with the local premiere of Jonathan Caren's drama, in which the power dynamic between two friends shifts after an incident on the road. Kel Haney directs.
The Recommendation: theater review by Jenna Scherer
Anyone who went to a private college will recognize the tense, tit-for-tat friendship between Iskinder “Izzy” Iudoku (Fouhey) and Aaron “Felly” Feldman (Trow). Izzy is bright and motivated, but monetarily challenged; Felly is charismatic and lazy, oozing privilege from his epidermis—which, as Izzy remarks in one of the script’s most evocative images, is “white as the sky is when you die.” Felly uses his connections to give Izzy a leg up, and we follow these bright young dudes from Brown to L.A., where Felly finds himself on the wrong side of the law.
The Recommendation races through the years at breakneck speed, giving us little time to know these guys in any real way. The pace slows down long enough to introduce an unhinged convict (the excellent Bass) Felly meets in the slammer, then zooms straight through to an engineered final confrontation. Playwright Jonathan Caren has an interesting voice and perspective, but he’s too busy forcing plot points to give his characters and themes the breathing room they deserve.—Theater review by Jenna Scherer
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