Steven Pasquale in Ayad Akhtar’s Junk
The world of high finance of the 1980s—or, perhaps, low finance—is illuminated in fascinatingly meticulous detail in Ayad Akhtar’s Junk, at the Vivian Beaumont. Akhtar, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Disgraced, is working on a much broader scale here, with a large cast and an even larger production under the firm hand of Doug Hughes. What we get is a financial fantasyland filled with undercurrents of greed, race, sex and other passions: all in all, a contemporary morality play. Make that immorality play.
Master of the Universe Robert Merkin (Steven Pasquale) plies his trade by arranging corporate takeovers, in which existing companies are devoured by buying up enough stock (backed by low-worth, high-yield junk bonds) to oust existing management. Merkin—so successful that he graces the cover of Time (“America’s Alchemist: Debt Becomes an Asset”)—sets his sights on Everson Steel and United, a revered, old-money Pennsylvania steel manufacturer.
Merkin, along with loyalist lawyer Raúl Rivera (Matthew Saldivar), arbitrageur Boris Pronsky (Joey Slotnick) and raider Israel Peterman (Matthew Rauch), engage in battle with the white collar—and you might as well read WASP—Thomas Everson, Jr. (Rick Holmes). Big Steel is backed by investment banker Maximilien Cizik (Henry Stram) and up-and-coming but ferocious lawyer Jacqueline Blount (Ito Aghayere). Complicating matters are billionaire financier Leo Tresler (Michael Siberry), who is in league (partially) with investigating journalist Judy Chen (Teresa Avia Lim).
Teresa Avia Lim and Michael Siberry in Ayad Akhtar’s Junk
This interlocking triangular passion play is interwoven with a fourth force led by crusading U.S. Attorney and imminent mayoral candidate, Guiseppe Addesso (Charlie Semine). He is in league with stalwart fraud investigator Kevin Walsh (Phillip James Brannon); they are hot on the heels of insider trading, and smell their prey. (There are continual references to that white whale, Moby Dick.) If the plot lines sound familiar, that’s because they are. While Junk is fictional, it is no coincidence that Robert Merkin resembles Michael Milken; with a stretch, you might even see Ivan Boesky in Boris Pronsky and a controversial former New York City mayor in the scheming district attorney. What’s more, the resolution of the Merkin case is not unlike that of the Milken affair.
This suggests a lot of detail and a lot of plot; there are about two-dozen actors on stage, and most play distinct roles. Under other circumstances, this might lead to an unwieldy evening, especially for those who are not schooled or interested in money matters (present company included). But Akhtar’s writing—here and in his other plays, Disgraced, The Who & The What and The Invisible Hand—is smart, focused and laser-sharp; he has also typically demonstrated the ability to make difficult points with humor.
The cast includes a handful of sterling performances, led by Pasquale (of The Bridges of Madison County) who makes Merkin an antihero we can both root for and recoil from. Stram gives one of his typically excellent performances as the white-glove lawyer; Aghayere is especially strong as the low-level lawyer playing both sides; and Siberry, who has a long line of credits including a not-very-comfortable Captain von Trapp in the 1998 Sound of Music, is riveting as the malevolent and bigoted Tresler. Standing out among the many others are Chen, Saldivar, Slotnick, Brannon, and Ethan Phillips as an uncomfortable elderly investor. (Disgraced climaxed with a memorable, gasp-inducing moment; Akhtar gives us a gut punch here as well, in a scene between Pasquale and Phillips.)
Director Hughes (Doubt) handles the action exceedingly well, with John Lee Beatty providing a highly effective set. The stage is separated into five playing spaces, front to back, with abbreviated scenic pieces winching in as called for; there are also another five shallow spaces on a platform above. Thus the action moves fluidly, often with separate scenes simultaneously sharing different areas of the stage, and is enhanced by the fine lighting by Ben Stanton and projections by 59 Productions.
Matthew Rauch and Steven Pasquale in Ayad Akhtar’s Junk
As Lincoln Center Theater’s Vivian Beaumont rests on the well-earned laurels of its recently-departed Oslo and looks ahead to the promised splendor of My Fair Lady, Akhtar & Co. perhaps unexpectedly provide a theatrical jolt with Junk.
Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Ayad Akhtar’s “Junk” opened November 2, 2017 and continues through January 7, 2018 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater