RAC around Town
Resident Acting Company Member Robin Leslie Brown was recently in a production of a new play called IMAGINING MADOFF at Stageworks/Hudson in Hudson, New York. Here is a review of the play. Congrats Robin!
Imagining Madoff by Deborah Margolin. Directed by Laura Margolis.
Reviewed by J. Peter Bergman
Photo: Rob Shannon
In a ninety minute drift-through of Bernie Madoff’s mind as he sits alone in a maximum security prison holding cell, we learn as much about him as most people will ever come to know about the man who ran the world’s most famous Ponzi scheme. His downstage cell is bordered on one side by the study of poet, philosopher and Holocaust survivor Solomon Galkin. Far upstage a woman, Madoff’s secretary, sits in a witness box testifying before the Security Exchange Commission. Time passes irregularly in this play and our attention is directed in one direction or another, and sometimes in two at the same time.
Robin Leslie Brown nails the secretary whose loyalty to her employer now allows her to question her knowledge, her feelings and her implied collaboration. As she testifies, Brown becomes more and more torn apart until she seems ready to fail her boss, betray complicity and ultimately to become the next victim of the man for whom she worked. Watching Brown slowly break down the insides of the Secretary (she has no name) until they are more visible than her body is a wonderful thing. Some may act from the inside out, but this fusion of actress and character lets us watch the process of emotional harikari delivered with aplomb.
One of the best one-act dramas of this season (and three are loads of them this summer), so far, “Imagining Madoff” is a must see for any true theater enthusiast or Madoff fan.
