Gloria
written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
directed by Evan Cabnet
The Vineyard Theatre
June 20, 2015

Production website     💉💉💉 out of 5.
Talk to any wanna-be actor and they will tell you that his/her number one fear is to spend out their youth in the confines of a cubicle, answering the phone, shuffling paper and dreaming of their next concoction at Starbucks! Gloria gives us such a cruel and competitive cubicle where twenty-somethings fight for the attention of their boss to get better jobs that they will equally disdain!

Office humor can be quite caddy and funny and then, of course, it can become quite crude, as lines are drawn and a feeding frenzy begins on all of the weak and disconnected employees. To avoid going out for drinks with the gang on Friday after work is to risk being the butt of the joke for a long, long time.

And then Act 1 ends with an explosion that you will never, never, ever, ever expect, and you will amble off the restroom for the intermission truly staring forward like a deer in headlights – – but I will not be giving that away. Sorry! But trust me. . .

Act 2 is far less satisfying. We get to watch all of the characters morph into another more comtemporary set of office folks and we now steer towards the topic of media and their unending desire to be the bottom-feeders of society – – seeking to take every tragedy and run it through as many tabloids as possible. It is a bit obvious and cliche here – – but trust me you will steel be reeling from Act 1.

If you have every sat yourself, even briefly, down in the halls of some corporate cubicle, you will get this. You will really get this.