According to a much-reported announcement last May The Financial Lives of the Poets, a 2009 novel by Spokanite, Jess Walter is in development for a film starring Jack Black. Book-It Rep. gives us a stage adaptation (at UW’s Jones Playhouse through June 30) that is more literary and cinematic than theatrical, resulting in a tolerably entertaining, yet disappointing production. This is due in part to the source material, which comes off here as run-of-the-mill popular modern literature that asks as little of its audience as it delivers. Fine acting and aggressive direction are further hampered by an adaptation that undercuts the theatrical form at every turn.
The story feels like something developed by a focus group for network TV, following the Great Recessionary struggles of Matt (Evan Whitfield), an unemployed financial journalist who resorts to dealing marijuana in an attempt to avoid foreclosure and his family’s eviction.
Myra Platt’s adaptation keeps the book in the room through a heavy reliance on narration. The production limits the risk of monotony by breaking up that narration among the various roles. Often this results in comedy as when a character describes himself with an incongruous self-awareness. This is most often the case with Matt’s father, a delightful Todd Jefferson Moore, whose sharp observations belie his otherwise jovial senility.
Another comical moment owed to the form comes with the narration of such theatrical highlights as moments of realization or emotional shift. One of theatre’s key strengths is in its communication of such moments by enactment rather than indication. This play undermines that strength several times as when Matt describes simultaneously enacts and describes the act of watching his wife’s paramour realize he’s been found out. The surprise of this theatrical failure is funny both for the indication of vulnerability on the part of the paramour as well as the play’s willful failure.
Unfortunately not all of the aesthetic distance that the presentational style creates benefits the production. More often it keeps us at an emotional distance that prevents the characters from achieving any depth. The enacted roles stand in as representatives for the characters whose lives remain locked in the book, like animated illustrations for a novel.
Less excusable are the cinematic qualities of the piece. This is the kind of play that tries to deliver jump cuts and freeze frames. Most notable are a few rewind and fast-forward sequences in which the cast performs quick, short movements to indicate the compression of time. The jokey self-consciousness is eye-rollingly sophomoric.
In the acting department Spike Huntington as the pot farmer, Monte, and Cobey Mandarino, in a variety of roles, steal the show. Mandarino’s first appearance as Richard, Matt’s financial advisor, revives the flagging energy of the production’s first quarter. Trick Danneker as the dealer, Jamie; Richard Nguyen Slonicker as the lawyer, Dave; and Jennifer Sue Johnson as Matt’s wife, Lisa; deliver solid, fully realized performances. Whitfield is eminently likable as Matt in a work that is more stamina than subtlety.
Platt’s direction drives this production at a breakneck pace that feels like an attempt to gloss over a weak script through sheer speed. At its finest moments the production combines clockwork precision with in-the-moment presence but these moments are fleeting and few, including rap sequences by the toking 7-11 denizens who inspire Matt’s gambit.
Sources suggest that Book-It’s adaptation of The Financial Lives of the Poets is among their better achievements as a text. If this is true then we might consider this company’s work differently from other theatre but rather something between theatre and storytelling. Nonetheless, no matter the form — whether dance, film, theatre, music, literature, storytelling or a static work — art tends to achieve either a degree of absorption in or a purposeful emotional distance from its audience. The Financial Lives of the Poets does neither, but it’s a nice piece of entertainment.
