Site-specific HERE production on Governors Island puts the audience in the middle of the action (photo by Carl Skutsch)
Pershing Hall, Governors Island
September 10, 13, 14, 20, 21, $18
www.here.org
A little bit of Wall Street has ferried over to Governors Island for HERE’s new site-specific participatory production, Trade Practices. Conceived by David Evans Morris, who also designed the sets, and created by Morris with HERE artistic director Kristin Marting, who serves as director, the show takes place in several rooms in historic Pershing Hall, Governors Island’s administrative headquarters. It’s a treat just to go inside the usually off-limits building, which boasts terrific Federal Art Project murals in the lobby depicting Teddy Roosevelt going up San Juan Hill, Robert E. Lee surrendering to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Zachary Taylor falling on his horse at the end of the War of 1812, and scenes from other battles that hint at what’s about to come. Upon entering the building, each participant is given a colored ticket that assigns them to a story line, as Trade Practices follows Tender Inc., a successful family-owned paper company perhaps gearing up to go public in the early 2000s. The different episodes go behind the scenes with four sets of characters organized under Management (written by Robert Lyons), Communication (KJ Sanchez), Owners (Chris Wells), and Workers (Qui Nguyen) as the audience follows lots of infighting and backstabbing, from sexy public relations head Patricia Silver (Jenniffer Diaz), Odyssey-loving employee leader Franklin (Daniel Kublick), competing managerial fast-trackers Brenda McCall (Megan Hill) and Circe Boudreaux (Mariana Newhard), and the extremely ambitious and musical Polly Tender (Mary Rasmussen). The firm, loosely inspired by the actual, prestigious history and products of Crane & Co. (the contentiousness and market wranglings are all fiction), with more than a few hints of Dunder Mifflin, is at a crossroads, trying to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses, including those of its current CEO, the stiff-shirted Jim Tender (Peter McCabe). After the first scene, everyone gathers on the trading floor, a room with a digital stock ticker and numerous televisions tuned to a cable business channel, where Smith (Mike Iveson Jr.) and Jones (Daphne Gaines) share some intimate tips about the company (in skits written by Elisa Davis), and then everyone invests in the characters and story line they’d like to follow, using play money and certificates; trading floor meetings after each episode allow audience members to buy and sell stock to change story lines for succeeding vignettes.
The door opens to boom or bust in participatory show on Governors Island (photo by Carl Skutsch)
Trade Practices is often too goofy and amateurish, but if you stick with the shaky premise and the purposeful overacting and invest yourself in it, you’ll certainly get your money’s worth, especially if others in the audience choose to get involved as well and don’t just hoard stock or hide in the background. As goal-oriented intern Darlene Tender (Brooke Ishibashi) warns early on, you will not be able to see everything during the two-hour indoctrination, so completionists, beware. In general, some scenes work much better than others, so your overall enjoyment is likely to be affected by the paths you choose, just as in life and business; we were partial to Patricia’s hot and fiery temperament and Franklin’s penchant for the unexpected, while musical theater enthusiasts would probably prefer Polly’s tale. It’s all rather low rent, which is part of its charm but also a drawback. The show doesn’t really shed much light on economics or business, but it’s still fun if you let yourself go and get immersed in the action. Trade Practices continues September 10 at 3:15, September 13 at 12:15, and September 14 and 20-21 at 12:15 and 3:45; tickets are eighteen dollars (cash only at the door; you can’t use real money to purchase stock), and the ferry is either free or two dollars depending on when you go.