This brand new, madcap, absurdist play of ideas by Rachel Perlmeter, features an original jazz score by Patricia Julien, performed live by her ensemble. It’s the story of two bohemian non-conformists with champagne habits and limited means, who collide with a pair of malevolent economists and embark on a series of capers and get-rich quick scams in a rapidly gentrifying portion of the borough of Brooklyn. The four players are matched in their verbal sparring and theoretical formulations by a quartet of musicians whose structural explorations amplify those of the text and the architecture of the scenic environment. Inspired by principles of game and catastrophe theories, the piece wonders whether cultural capital merits an alternative lifestyle in the age of contrivance, whether living beautifully on the fringes consigns one to the dustbin of history, and whether there is a way to skew the rules of the game of upward mobility in America.
Jazz artists have always been eloquent commentators on the struggles of making do with scarce resources and principles of efficiency are not as foreign to the theatre as they might seem. Upending conventional wisdom about the circulation of money and ideas (circular logic) and laying bare some of the catastrophic and turbulent aspects of our economy and culture, the play invites the most phobic of viewers to celebrate the absurd and spectacularly discontinuous nature of the human condition.
Musically and conceptually experimenting with voice/harmony and counterpoint/polyphony within the quartet structure, the work investigates our competing instincts for autonomy and symbiosis. As the global marketplace spins and expands, improvisation is increasingly required to ride the tide. Slipping through strategies raided from the great march, our fearless duo plant victory gardens, brew bathtub gin, seize the cash on the table, and plan the ultimate heist- all the while keeping their eyes peeled for the invisible hand and the elusive point of equilibrium. With a tripped out soundscape that slides through time, and “utiles” galore, OSTENTATIOUS POVERTY promises to unhinge assumptions about eccentricity in an age of uncertainty.
OSTENTATIOUS POVERTY: an economical quartet's Friend Space (Top 7)
OSTENTATIOUS POVERTY: an economical quartet has 10 friends.
