- OTHER MEDIA
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- Review by George Heymont on HuffingtonPost.com March 23, 2011
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- Follow The Money: Playwrights Tackle The Global Financial Crisis
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- San Francisco's EXIT Theatre is currently hosting the world premiere
of a brilliant new play by Bennett Fisher. Presented by No Nude Men Productions
and directed by Tore Ingersoll-Thorp, Hermes does an astonishing job of
explaining the similarities between believing in god and believing in debt.
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- The play's premise is simple: Soon after a god returns to earth, the
world comes to an end. Fisher stresses that:
- "While researching the role Goldman Sachs and other American financial
institutions played in the most recent financial collapse, I found it very
difficult to get a straight answer. I did not intend for this play to be
a reenactment of the Greek financial meltdown; I wanted to use the meltdown
-- along with the gods Hestia and Hermes, along with the sort of fraud
perpetrated by companies like Enron -- as a lens to examine opportunism,
indifference, greed, possibility, power, and humanity. In my mind, it is
less a play about history, mythology, politics, or economics than it is
about people."
- The humans in Fisher's play are a quartet of hard-drinking, greedy
Wall Street gamblers who (while stuck in Europe because of mass flight
cancellations following the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull
volcano) see an opportunity to manipulate the financial crisis in Greece
to their advantage. Debating which sales technique will work best (the
Big Bird, Chicken Little, or Jenny Craig approach), they cling to the basic
truism that, even in the worst of circumstances, "business finds a
way."
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- Then the youngest among them comes up with a brilliant idea. Jack has
the gall to suggest that the others may be "too old" to grasp
his concept. A noticeable chill enters the room.
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- However, Jack's idea has not gone unnoticed. Usually seen as a messenger
in Greek mythology, Hermes also acts as the god of commerce and thieves.
Slimier and far more aggressive than Bernie Madoff or Gordon Gekko, Hermes
has been crafted by Fisher to act as the physical manifestation of fraud.
Clad in a pair of winged golden sneakers, he takes great delight in punching
financial cowards in the balls. In his writer's statement, Fisher stresses
that:
- "Hermes is frequently cast in the role of a trickster, a mythological
archetype present in many traditions other than the Greeks. But, more than
this, he is the god of surrogates and substitutes. Language and mathematics
allow us to order the natural world, separating that indistinct jumble
of atomic particles that is existence into individual and identifiable
parcels. Commerce and trade operate under the principle that a value can
stand in for an object. If the truth is undesirable, a lie can be used
instead.
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- In my opinion, Hermes' dominion, inventiveness and expressiveness,
represent the highest form of human thought. Hermes allows us to think
of something greater than ourselves. Poseidon and Demeter have sway over
distinct skills like sea travel and agriculture. Gods like Dionysus, Athena,
and Apollo correspond to even more abstract concepts like justice and art.
But it is Hermes' areas of influence that facilitate each of these. Slippery
logic and artful language are more fearsome than thunderbolts. Greed and
poverty level more houses than war. Hermes alone allows man to transcend
what is tangible, to devise and articulate concepts that have only a tenuous
connection to the physical world. Hermes allows us to be human."
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- With his rough-and-tumble script about corporate greed and the illegal
manipulation of global financial markets, Fisher's daring and extremely
intelligent play offers a solid dramatic counterpoint to some of Matt Taibbi's
investigative journalism about the current financial crisis in Rolling
Stone Magazine. His ability to dramatize man's talent for making a profit
off of something that is truly worthless delivers a breathtaking experience
in relevant, contemporary theatre.
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- Although Hermes may be Fisher's first full-length play to be produced
onstage, there can be no doubt that it deserves to reach a much larger
audience. Performances continue at San Francisco's Exit Stage Left through
March 26. You can order tickets here.
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