Theater Review: GLORIA (Chance Theater)

GLORIA, HALLELUJAH!

Unless you can see Gloria at The Chance Theater tonight or tomorrow, this may be a review of record, as it ran only two weeks after opening night, but I tell you this is what theater should be: unique, sharp, funny, adventurous. The author, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, continues to be one of contemporary theater’s most valuable assets. And the Chance Theater proves it’s as good as the material it chooses.

Audrey Forman, Emma Laird, Will Martella, and Johnathan Middleton

Will Martella and Johnathan Middleton

This 2015 Off-Broadway two-act is unsettling, shocking and funny as it scathingly depicts the poorly-paid, dead-end, “soul-sucking” jobs of bored and, often, miserable cogs in the wheel of a Manhattan zine. I don’t know if Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins has ever worked in a Manhattan publishing house but he sure knows his way about the workplace. In Gloria, he paints an extraordinary portrait of the workings of an office whose conflicts revolve around some writers with their own agendas, a sense of emotional intensity on their part, combined with a certain waywardness about the work itself. One character takes breaks to go to Starbucks as often as possible rather than dedicate herself to the kind of work which would define her. But they are defined, in their own words, by the brilliantly blistering monologues the playwright has written for them.

Will Martella and Branda Lock

Buoyed both by a unifying sense of reality and a cockeyed sense of abstraction, which is the personal technique of its author, whose plays include the breathtakingly original Neighbors, An Octoroon, and Appropriate — magically updated for Broadway — the stunning first act of Gloria skewers everyone and everything within its reach, without losing a sense of comic breadth and, at the same time, a serious kind of logic and wisdom. You might call it a new kind of theater of the ridiculous. You immerse yourself in the naturalism of the setting and its people, while seeing through all the human absurdity, and still come unprepared for the menace that lies just below the surface and which finally reveals itself just before the curtain comes down on the first act.

Will Martella, Emma Laird, and Audrey Forman

Sitting at cubicles are Ani (Emma Laird), a professional but nosy subordinate; Kendra (Audrey Forman), a sniping fashion follower who avoids work like the plague; and Dean (Will Martella), an unfulfilled, frustrated worker who feels stuck in his job with little hope of advancement or recognition. Behind these editorial assistants is Miles (Johnathan Middleton), a college student intern and errand boy. Lorin, the head fact-checker (Erick Scilley), works down the hall and complains about their noise. One of the objects of gossip is Gloria (Branda Lock), an older and reclusive editor, who hosted a party the previous evening that no one attended except a hungover Dean.

The cast

The real beauty of Jacobs-Jenkins’ play is the second act, which you come back after intermission expecting questions to be answered, only to find that the playwright has something else on his mind, something more layered and complex. The second act’s bitter sequel exposes venal and amoral ambitions: After a workplace atrocity, some are willing to profit from pain by possibly exorcising, but definitely exploiting, the experience with the writing of a book. (This cannibalism of a crisis may atone for the dreary drudgery they have had to endure, toiling as scribes in the dying publishing industry.)

Branda Lock and Emma Laird

In Act II, the actors appear again, but some have been assigned new roles in addition to those we’ve met already. The fact that we know who they were before becomes sort of a causal anecdote about the revolving door of a writing career. Adriana Lámbarri’s awesome costumes and wigs contribute immensely to the character transformations. Each actor is so tremendous that singling one out seems illogical. Yet the chameleonic Branda Lock perhaps achieves the greatest dramatic turnaround among this estimable ensemble. In Act I, she’s the unseen voice of Nan, a distracted boss who can’t even remember an intern’s name. She’s also the sad-sack, perplexing titular character, Gloria, who wanders in and out of the scene with an odd demeanor. However, in the second act Ms. Goldapple morphs back to Nan – twice. First following the fallout from the office, then a year later when she’s progressed into a wholly different woman — stronger and wiser — who’s known family and success in a whole new light. Exceptional.

Will Martella and Audrey Forman

Erik Scilley and Emma Laird

Marya Mazor, the director, sets into motion the work at a fast, almost head-scratchingly unnuanced pace, but the second act contains every nuance provided by the play itself and gives every actor, all of whom are excellent, room to display their every quirk, bringing depth and substance. The play sticks to you long after you’ve left the theater. This production owes a great deal to Christopher Scott Murillo’s set designs, particularly that first act office, to Andrea Heilman’s superb lighting.

Erik Scilley and Johnathan Middleton

photos by Doug Catiller

Gloria
Chance Theater
Cripe Stage, 5522 E. La Palma Ave. in Anaheim
2 hours, 10 minutes with intermission
ends on October 20, 2024
for tickets, ($41-44), call 888.455.4212 or visit Chance