Shame or the Doomsday Machine
Written by Crystal Field
Directed by Mark Marcante
Theatre for the New City
August 5, 2018
Production website
💉 out of 5.

Here is where we are with this production.  We entered the Theatre for the New City on 10th Street, and then were directed out back to the street where all was blocked off and a portable stage was erected.  Music was blaring, sun barreling down, kids were running around screaming – my ideal theatre setting.    This was not going to be a good show, I get it, by almost any standard.  The performers were lost – some seem totally unprepared as they were just offstage discussing their lines, movements, exits/entrances and on and on.  Performers were spending more time socializing with the audience then focusing on the stage.  Non-professional, community generated, we’ll-take-everyone-who-shows-up kind of theatre.

The performance was a most hodgey of a hodgey-podgy play.  It was just a series of random political rants from Trump, to socialism, to women’s rights.  Very few could sing.  Almost no one would be confused for an actor or a dancer but . . .

What was wonderful – was that this theatre defined inclusiveness.  You could tell that all were invited to the table of this production.  Everyone’s heart was in it.  They cared.  They had energy.  They were enjoying what theatre could give them on this sunny afternoon.

If only we, the audience, sitting on our plastic milk crates could have had more.