When I stopped in last weekend to see 99 Layoffs, playing down in ACT’s Eulalie Scandiuzzi Space, I discovered I was not the only one with that idea. I was there half an hour early, and still ended up tenth in a stand-by line. Luckily, a last, single open seat meant two couples before me gave up rather than split up, and I swooped in.
The popularity has continued unabated, and the 99 Layoffs run has been extended, with extra performances remaining from August 23 to August 26. Tickets are $30, which makes a good reason to get an ACT Pass (the $25-per-month membership that gets you in to most shows at ACT, three-month-minimum purchase). Check the calendar–if you’re going to see more than two shows, it’s well worth it.
99 Layoffs is another Radial Theater project, the first being the promisingly hilarious Karaoke Suicide is Painless featuring Terri Weagant. For this outing, the local playwright tapped was Vincent Delaney, whose workshop of another new play, Foreclosure, is coming up in September.
Despite the title and the times, 99 Layoffs is a comedy about two sadsacks who–it’s been noted by others–would not need a recession to find themselves unemployed. K. Brian Neel plays Orson (and other characters, including a frightening, devil-spawn four-year-old) and Aimée Bruneau, Louella (and others, including an HR manager with a heart and Sprinkles, a sidewalk doughnut).
Orson and Louella are stuck in job-interview hell, trying to be “hirable” and competitive, and only succeeding in bonding over Orson’s flutophone, carried in a holster on his belt. By nights, Orson anonymously life-coaches Louella via Skype, the sort of coincidence that you sigh a little at and go with.
Neel is a rubbery-jointed character whose comedic exertions leave him drenched in sweat, and, ultimately, less funny, since he’s visibly working so hard at it. Bruneau–my god, she’s full of stars. Even if 99 Layoffs wasn’t agreeably entertaining in its sketchy-comedy way, it’d be worth seeing for Bruneau’s portrayals, which seem etched with laser-precision. (To give Delaney his due, he struck gold with Sprinkles, in line after line that feel true, wounding, and hilarious.) If they ever bring back Almost Live!, they can outsource the complete cast to Bruneau.
Production design includes costumes (doughnut and doughnut-hole outfits, outstanding) by Julia Evanovich, lighting by Dani Prados, set (with cunning use of projections) by Montana Tippett, and sound by Robertson Witmer.
David Gassner directs, and his work with Bruneau is highlight-reel worthy–I’m of two minds about the interpolated interviews with real people about their worst jobs. It brings the screwball antics back down to earth, affecting the play’s momentum, but they’re also oddly compelling, and when Louella pops up, her response makes the whole set-up worthwhile.
Taken as a fringe-style production, 99 Layoffs rates above average, but it is uneven and lumpy at the seams (as written, Orson and Louella are less people than walking worst-case scenarios), and it doesn’t provide much to chew on besides its laughs, save the reminder that sadsacks always do exist and that for them, life under capitalism can seem one long recession. I wouldn’t carp about it, except that Delaney does have things to say: Though they arrive intermittently here, they leave a mark when they land.