Attorney-Client

One is not supposed to focus so much on trees that you miss the forest, right? I get that. But what if they're really big, ugly, focus-grabbing trees?

I suspect that Client-Attorney, Alex Ladd's drama at Theater for the New City, is a solid, thoughtful play with a careful structure and something important to say. But I don't know for sure because the same repetitive, abrasive, and unpleasant music is played during every scene change. And there are a lot of scene changes. The music neither enhances nor complements the show. It does, however, interrupt the play's rhythms and knock the audience out of the world of the play and the characters. By the end of the show, I was sticking my fingers in my ears each time a scene ended. If I had been able to quietly consider what had just occurred before each scene change, this review would be much more useful. As it is, the deeply annoying music/tree made it impossible for me to fully appreciate the play/forest. 

The basic set-up of the play is that two young men, one White and rich (Joss Gyorkos), the other Black and poor (Lovell Adams-Gray), are arrested for a hit-and-run car accident in which a young woman is injured. The White man's father gets him the best defense that money can buy, with the attorney also played by Adams-Gray. The Black man ends up with a public defender (also played by Gyorkos), who does what he can to help him but is limited by a lack of resources and the built-in inequities of the justice system. The young men are pressured to behave in the ways their lawyers think best, which have little to do with who the young men are, what they want, and whether or not they are guilty. 

All of this is, of course, underlined and misshapen by systemic racism. This theme is more referred to than developed. That the white guy is rich and the black guy poor stacks the deck. And the constant costume changes (accompanied by that damn music), don't allow the impact of the show to build as it might. While switching off the roles might be fun for the actors, I suspect a four-person cast, with a more streamlined presentation, would be better for the play.

Adams-Gray, Gyorkos

Adams-Gray and Gyorkos acquit themselves pretty well, although Gyorkos's accent for the rich white guy is puzzling at best. The direction, by Pat Golden, has strengths and weaknesses. She has helped the actors develop well-differentiated characters, and that is certainly a plus. But she clearly feels a need to avoid a static stage picture, and has the characters--the white guy in particular--get up and walk around for no reason other than to have someone moving on stage. But the writing is sufficiently interesting to keep the audience's attention all by itself.

Please remember to take this review with a huge grain of salt. The music was so off-putting to me that I just couldn't give the show my full concentration. If the creators promised to remove the music, or replace it with much better, more varied music, I would actually like to give the play a second chance.

Wendy Caster