Renata Friedman Archives - TheaterScene.net

Renata Friedman

Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy

February 13, 2024

Sarah Gancher’s "Russian Troll Farm: A Workplace Comedy" is seemingly torn from the headlines - if this were the lead-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election which pitted Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump. In 2024, it seems rather past its due date. Although it calls itself a comedy, it is not very funny but rather outrageous in its depicting of Russian misinformation intended for the American internet to influence the voters to cast their ballot for Trump rather than Clinton. What Gancher has written cannot make up its mind whether it is a comedy, satire, parody, drama or tragedy or a combination of all the above, which is problematic. Under Darko Tresnjak’s direction, don’t blame the hard working cast led by film and stage star Christine Lahti, all of whom throw themselves into their offbeat roles with abandon. [more]

No One Is Forgotten

July 14, 2019

Playwright Winter Miller offers a shakily hollow mélange of Genet, Beckett and Pinter with her two women in a prison cell scenario taking place in an unnamed foreign country. Ms. Miller’s dialogue is well-shaped and achieves sporadic humor and emotional resonance but to no real purpose as her effort comes across as an artificial exercise rather than a realized play. Without explanation sometimes only one character appears, and we’re left to conclude, “Maybe it’s a flashback or one was taken away and returned. Did one of them die?” [more]

Then They Forgot About the Rest

April 23, 2019

Playwright Georgina Escobar presents an exuberant hodgepodge of sci-fi elements and satirical corporate bits with a feminist slant. Ms. Escobar’s punchy pseudo-scientific dialogue carries her choppy scenario with its shades of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" to sustaining the mildly entertaining 80 minutes. Escobar has a command of language, sprinkling catchphrases that land throughout. Early onset, end of days, extreme memory vetting, protein inhibitor and Petro Corp all get a lot of mileage. It doesn’t all gel, vagueness abounds but there’s spirited integrity. “…I’m asking improbable questions seeking impossible answers,” Escobar states in her program notes. [more]