Office politics heat up over the NCAA pool in Mike Vogel’s MARCH MADNESS (photo by Kim T. Sharp)
Dorothy Strelsin Theatre
Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex
312 West 36th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through November 18, $25
www.abingdontheatre.org
About ten years ago, we toiled at a privately owned New York City publication not unlike the one portrayed by freelance journalist Mike Vogel in his very funny, highly incisive new play, March Madness — the similarities are so close, in fact, that we can’t help wondering whether he worked there as well at one time. In the eighty-minute Abington Theatre production, smoothly directed by Donald Brenner (The Most Ridiculous Thing You Ever Hoid), Tom Mardirosian (Oz, The Wire) stars as Maury Landers, a former New York Times reporter now writing advertiser-driven stories for the small trade rag Drug Store Times. Maury is a cynical, foul-mouthed sixty-six-year-old man who works in the same claustrophobic room with the much younger Kyle Rodgers (former Notre Dame defensive back AJ Cedeño), a husband and new father who politely does what he’s told, and Kim (Lucy McMichael), a mousey copy editor taking care of a seriously ill sister. Brad Bellamy is wonderfully herky-jerky as pathetic editorial director Herb, a spineless jellyfish who fretfully does the bidding of unseen owner Donald, a fiercely unreasonable boss who is only heard via cell phone. Mark Doherty (Blame It on Beckett) nails the ultra-slick Nick, the sharply dressed sales head who orders Maury and Kyle around, forcing them to include current and potential advertisers in pieces that end up being more like advertorials, which makes Maury crazy. Overworked and underpaid, Maury, who still dreams of getting that big investigative story, considers not organizing the annual NCAA college basketball March Madness office pool but soon decides instead to make it a winner-take-all, $5,000-per-person extravaganza, hoping the pot goes high enough for the winner to walk away from Drug Store Times forever, but not before telling off the appropriate people. As the tournament continues, office hijinks heat up, leading to a furious conclusion. March Madness is an engaging, insightful comedy that cleverly captures these difficult economic times. Although the plot takes a few twists and turns that border on the edge of believability, the talented cast overcomes them, led by Mardirosian, whose curmudgeonly but eminently likable Maury embodies the lost dream of the American worker, and Doherty, whose money- and power-hungry Nick symbolizes so much that is wrong in today’s selfish, capitalist society. The title might refer to the annual college basketball tournament, but it’s really about the ridiculous absurdities suffered by employees every day in offices around the country.