Artfuckers

photo: Carol Rosegg

The young super-privileged scenesters who are this play's characters (and I use that word loosely) are all relentlessly selfish, self-absorbed a-holes. Typically their brand of willfull narcissism is cause for satiric ridicule but here the insufferable brats are meant to be taken seriously as they talk through their dramas (unconvincingly, and usually in direct address mode) and whine about this or that speed bump toward their own fabulousness. Almost none of it smells of real life: the play is as shallow and unsympathetic as its characters. As a writhingly insecure artiste who suffers suicidally over a bad review in Artforum, Will Janowitz fares best of all the actors; as for the rest of the cast I look forward to seeing them all in something else.