Displaying items by tag: Alena Smith

Filled with clever and rapid-fire dialogue exchanges, The New Sincerity is a fast-moving comedy written by Alena Smith, one of the nation’s top young, up and coming women writers. The play’s title is explained well in its press release - "Erudites among us know "New Sincerity" is an actual term used in music, aesthetics, film criticism, poetry and philosophy, generally to describe art or concepts that run against prevailing modes of postmodernist irony or cynicism." And there is plenty of cynicism and irony to be found in the latest comedy/drama at Theater Wit that deals with millennials and the idealism of the Occupy Movement. 

As co-founder of a highly regarded online political journal, Asymptote, Benjamin, a Harvard literature graduate, is always looking for hard-hitting and thought provoking material to maintain status among their peers and competitors. Just less than a block away from their office is the Occupy Movement where protesters converge in the park all throughout the day and night. Benjamin’s newly appointed senior contributor, Rose, has a strong interest in doing a piece on the protest, but he is insistent she stay far removed for fear of taking sides. Disregarding Benjamin’s direct order, Rose not only checks out the movement firsthand but creates a relationship with one of the protesters, Django. As feared, word gets out about an Asymptote staff member being associated with the Occupy Movement and Benjamin not only takes the criticisms from his co-owner and faithful readers, but he fears how this will affect his fiance's upcoming book release since her last book, Death of the Left Wing clearly believed that the modern protest is dead and ineffective. Furious at Rose for screwing up the journal’s branding, she finally convinces Benjamin to visit the movement, which he reluctantly does. 

The story then becomes that of an opportunist and the hypocrisies that come about as Benjamin realizes the potential afoot and does a complete turnaround to where he can’t get enough coverage on the movement, even to the point that he lies about being involved from day one. We also see the hollowness in Benjamin regarding his relationship with women as he states he does not really believe in love and deep connections, much the opposite of Rose. 

Smart and brutally honest, The New Sincerity offers tremendous acting performances by each of its four cast members. Drew Shirley as is energetic and finely projects the qualities to make a convincing Benjamin who is incapable of fully connecting emotionally. At the same time, Maura Kidwell as Rose is perfectly cast as the grounded one who seems to get it in the play while Erin Long as the very funny tell-it-like-it-is intern Natasha and Alex Stein as the protest because there’s a protest protester Django also provide a huge spark.

I really enjoyed the set which was a cozy two-story office with large windows giving us a peek at New York City. As the scenes changed, large computer monitors would tell us what month it was giving us a nice idea of a time frame.

I liked the direction of this play by Jeremy Wechsler, as I felt he outstandingly captured the essence of millennium living, ideals, social media marketing and stereotypes. The often overly politically correct gender pronoun usage was also addressed when a friend of Django’s insisted on being called dragon as she did not identify with male or female. I wasn’t quite sure if Smith was taking a jab at renaming our own gender to whatever we want or embracing the fact that we can.   

The New Sincerity has plenty of very funny dialogue exchanges and provides a story that is paced very well with plenty of memorable moments. I recommend this fiercely funny play, which is being performed at Theater Wit through April 17th. For more show info visit www.TheaterWit.org.